?R 



E 



*R 5338 

Z, 1 »^REFUTATION 



11. 

MISSTATEMENTS AND CALUMNIES 



CONTAINED IN MR. LOCKHART S 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER vSCOTT, BART., 



RESPECTING 



THE MESSRS. BALLANTYNE. 



THE TRUSTEES AND SON 
OF THE LATE MR. JAMES BALLANTYNE. 

FROM THE SECOND LONDON EDITION. 



BOSTON: 

JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY 

1838. 



v^- 



REFUTATION 



MISSTATEMENTS AND CALUMNIES 

CONTAINED IN MR. LOCKHART's 

LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART., 

RESPECTING 

THE MESSRS. BALLANTYNE. 

BY 

THE TRUSTEES AND SON 
OF THE LATE MR. JAMES BALLANTYNE. 

FROM THE SECOND LONDON EDITION. 



BOSTON: 

JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY. 
1838. 






V. 



BOSTON: 

FREEMAN AND BOLLES, PRINTERS, 

WASHINGTON STREET. 



I (2 



PREFACE. 

s ^ In offering to the public the following remarks, 
I j^ intended to vindicate the character and con- 
' i duct of the late Mr. James Ballantyne, which 

: I have been so foully aspersed by Mr. John 

Gibson Lockhart, in his Life of Sir Walter 
Scott, the trustees and executors of that 
gentleman, acting in concert with his family, 
conceive that no apology is necessary on their 
part for the step they have thus taken, nor for 
the firm and decided manner in which they 
have repelled the misstatements and calum- 
nies by means of which Mr. Lockhart has at- 
tempted to fix a stain upon the memory of 
their departed friend. On the contrary, since 
the appearance of the work in question, and 
the full development of that hostile spirit by 
which it is pervaded, they have had but one 



IV PREFACE. 

opinion as to the course which their duty pre- 
scribed for their adoption ; and, with sufficient 
materials in their hands for refuting all that 
Mr. Lockhart has alleged or insinuated in dis- 
paragement of Mr. Ballantyne, they feel that 
they would neither have done justice to them- 
selves, nor have fulfilled, in its true spirit, the 
sacred trust confided to them, if they had not 
come forward to repel the most unjust and 
ungenerous attack that ever was made upon 
the memory of an upright and honorable man. 
In acting upon these convictions of duty, 
however, they are aware that they have done 
so under several disadvantages. They have 
no pretensions whatever to enter into literary 
strife with Mr. Lockhart; and they cannot 
stoop to engage in a mere war of words, re- 
specting matters which must be judged and 
decided by the evidence of facts and docu- 
ments alone. They are also fully sensible 
that, if Mr. Ballantyne had been still alive, he 
would have defended himself with far greater 
ability, and a much more intimate knowledge 
of the complex transactions they have been 



PREFACE. V 

called on to unravel, than they either possess 
or can in any degree pretend to ; indeed it is 
their firm belief that, if their excellent friend 
had been spared, Mr. Lockhart would have 
put the rein upon his imagination, and hesi- 
tated to assert wdiat he could not substantiate, 
and what, in such a case, might have been 
more easily and effectually disproved. As it 
is, however, his representatives humbly con- 
ceive they have produced evidence sufficient 
to vindicate his character and conduct, in re- 
lation to all his transactions with Sir Walter 
Scott ; and also to convince the world that, 
so far from having, in any respect, injured his 
illustrious friend, he was himself the victim of 
schemes into which he was reluctantly and 
almost inevitably drawn. 

The authors much regret the delay which 
has arisen in the appearance of this " Refuta- 
tion," but, from various causes, it was unavoid- 
able. 

Edinburgh, August^ 1838. 



I 



REFUTATION, &^c. 



" Lockhart," said Sir Walter Scott, when his son-m-law 
was called to his death-bed, " I may have but a mmute to 
speak to you. My dear, be a good man-be virtuous-be 
religious-be a good man. Nothing else will give you any 
comfort when you come to lie he^e."-(X^/e of Sir W. Scott, 
vol. vii. p. 393.) 

When Sir Walter Scott, upon his death-bed, ad- 
dressed this parting admonition to the gentleman 
destined to become his literary executor, he not 
only evinced a deep interest in the welfare of that 
individual, but at the same time impressively 
indicated the spirit in which he expected his son- 
in-law to conduct himself, even in asserting and 
vindicating his posthumous fame. He recom- 
mended that '' goodness" which excludes all ma- 
hgnant thoughts or representations ; that '' virtue 
which courageously proclaimsthe truth ; and that 
''religion" "which thinketh no evil:" and he 
solemnly declared that nothing else would give 



8 



him any comfort when he came to He upon the 
bed. of death, there to take the retrospect of his 
past Ufe and actions. 

We are now going to inquire what effect this 
touching appeal produced upon the mind of the 
gentleman to whom it was addressed, — not at the 
moment, when any human heart not altogether 
seared must have been softened, and disposed to 
receive generous impressions, but in following out 
the duties of the important literary trust commit- 
ted to him. In doing so, however, we shall keep 
aloof from all speculations, and adhere strictly to 
facts. Nor shall we concern ourselves with any 
inquiry into the private views, motives, feelings, 
or principles of Mr. Lockhart, as these might be 
collected by inference from the Life of Sir Walter 
fScott, in which, we lament to say, the character 
of the dead and the feelings of the living have, in 
so many instances, been most wantonly assailed. 
The task which we propose to ourselves is one of 
a different description, namely, to expose the in- 
justice of his representations in as far as two per- 
sons are concerned ; — to show that his own dis- 
paraging statements are directly contradicted by 
the evidence Avhich he has himself produced ; — 
and to place in a true light before the public that 
series of transactions which, either from ignorance 
or design, he has involved in misrepresentation 
and perplexity. 

Before this Life appeared, the pecuniary embar- 
rassments of Sir Walter Scott were matter of gen- 



HIS PECUNIARY EMBARRASSMENTS. y 

eral notoriety ; and, since its publication, they 
have been found to constitute the staple subject of 
the work, and are now, in their origin, progress, 
and consummation, as fully before the public as 
Mr. Lockhart has been able or willing to place 
them. Such matters, indeed, have but little in- 
terest to the great mass of readers, who seldom 
think it worth while to take the trouble to under- 
stand them, and who are, moreover, indifferent to 
concerns by which they can in nowise be affected. 
But in the present instance the case is materially 
different. The well earned fame of Sir Walter 
Scott, and the unparalleled sums which he was 
generally understood to have realized by his 
works, taken in conjunction with the bankruptcy 
and ruin in which he and those connected with 
him became ultimately involved, excited a gen- 
eral desire to penetrate the secret of the mystery, 
which no one was able altogether to unravel, al- 
though many had shrewdly divined its real char- 
acter ; and hence the volumes of the Life, as they 
successively appeared, were devoured with all 
the eagerness of the most impatient curiosity. 

Nor has Mr. Lockhart been wanting in the use 
of the means calculated to feed this appetite. By 
blending his attempts to exculpate his father-in- 
law from blame, in transactions where he alone 
was responsible, with caricature portraits and dis- 
paraging or degrading anecdotes of Sir Walter's 
most intimate friends and associates ; by libellous 
misrepresentations and bitter personalities; by 
a2 



10 CHARACTER AND OBJECT OF MR. LOCKHARt's '' LIFE." 

exaggerating foibles, recording hasty expressions, 
and rehearsing after-dinner conversations, where 
he, perchance, was himself present as a guest; 
and, generally, by pandering to that depraved 
taste which gloats over all sorts of revelations 
calculated to lower to the level of the vulgar herd 
those who had before appeared to occupy elevated 
stations ; — by these, and other similar means, he 
has certainly succeeded in giving a certain species 
of attraction to this portion of his work, unprom- 
ising as it seemed, and also in imparting to his 
cruel and ridiculous distortions a temporary cur- 
rency and credit. 

It must be obvious to every person who has 
perused the Life^ that one great object of Mr. 
Lockhart is to rivet on the public mind the impres- 
sion that all the involvements, embarrassments, 
and misfortunes of his father-in-law were, in a 
great measure, if not altogether, attributable to 
his choice of improper or worthless instruments. 
From first to last he labors, directly or indirectly, 
by assertion and insinuation, by ribaldry and dis- 
tortion, to depreciate the character, or to throw 
ridicule on the habits and conduct, of the individ- 
uals with whom Sir Walter Scott was chiefly 
connected, and in whom he most fully confided. 
The Messrs. Ballantyne, in particular, are not 
only the objects of incessant derision, but they 
are made the scape-goats of all Scott's errors and 
misfortunes. No quarter is given to them ; all 
merit, industry, and intelligence, are, in some 



TREATMENT OF SCOTT's FRIENDS. 11 

mode or form, denied them, either exphcitly or by 
imphcatioii. They are each introduced upon the 
scene in a manner calculated, and intended, to be 
disparaging. They are caricatured in their per- 
sons, in their manners, in their habits, and even 
in their virtues. Their alleged foibles or weak- 
nesses are made the frequent subject of vulgar wit 
and ribald exaggeration. And, as if all this, and 
much more of the same sort, were not enough, 
ludicrous nicknames are bestowed on them, to 
serve as reminiscences of all that has elsewhere 
been said or insinuated to their disadvantage ; 
while, to envenom the wound thus inflicted on the 
feelings of the living, these opprobrious sobriquets 
are aflixed upon the alleged authority of Sir Wal- 
ter Scott, who, if he actually took such liberties 
with his friends, under cover of the confidential 
intercourse of private life and good-humored 
fellowship, certainly never contemplated that his 
familiarities would be so scandalously abused by 
the individual to whom his dying injunctions had 
prescribed a very different rule of conduct. In a 
word, Mr. Lockhart endeavors, throughout the 
whole of his work, to aggrandize the character of 
Sir Walter Scott by depreciating that of the friends 
whom he most esteemed and trusted ; and seeks 
to exonerate him from all blame connected with 
the misfortunes which ruined them all, by insinu- 
ating every sort of misdeed or negligence against 
his associates.^ 

* In the Life of Sir Walter Scott it did not, it seems, 
occur to Mr. Lockhart that the representations he has given 



12 IMPUTATIONS AGAINST THE BALLANTYNES. 

A shrewder biographer, recollecting the old 
maxim, Noscitur a sociis, would, perhaps, have 
avoided paying so bad a compliment to the mi- 
derstanding, judgment, and principles of his hero 

of his father-in-law's dearest friends and most constant 
allies might lead honest people to inquire how, if these men 
were really such doubtful or ambiguous characters — glut- 
tons or picaroons — as they have been described by him, a 
gifted being like Scott, who to high genius united great 
worldly discernment and sagacity, came to associate with 
and confide in them throughout every vicissitude of fortune, 
in cloud as well as in sunshine, in storm as well as in calm. 
A question so natural and so german to the subject (as 
treated by Mr. Lockhart) not having been anticipated by 
him, no solution had been provided for the unforeseen in- 
terrogatory. But, when reflection had shown that it might 
be convenient to obviate an objection which must present 
itself to every mind, means were immediately used to sup- 
ply the omission : and we have now before us the Standard 
newspaper of the 2d April, 1838, in which, under cover of 
some general remarks on the Life of Sir Walter Scott, an 
attempt is made to forestall the anticipated objection ; and, 
in order to give greater prominence to the volunteer defence, 
the ordinary " leader " of the paper is displaced to make 
room for it. The writer of the article in question, after 
telling us that " Sir Walter Scott was the greatest man 
that has lived in our generation," and that " he was the 
wisest man of his own and of many ages," proceeds to throw 
a little shade into his picture, by way of enhancing the ul- 
timate effects: — " Hehad iveaknesses, but they were the effect 
of a lofty and modest nature ; he ivas indiscreet in the selec- 
tion of associates, from generous confidence and a too much 
expanded benevolence." We speak with much deference, 
but we must, nevertheless, be permitted to observe, that a 
tendency to herd with improper associates appears to us to 



IMPUTATIONS AGAINST THE BALLANTYNES. 13 

as is involved in the portraiture he has thus 
drawn of his most intimate and confidential 
friends. But, as Mr. Lockhart has not thought 
it proper to exercise any such discretion in regard 
to the persons who enjoyed his father-in-law's 
esteem and confidence ; as he has even published 
documents, and made disclosures, which the dic- 
tates of ordinary prudence and good feeling would 
have led any other man, similarly situated, to 
withhold; and as he has sought, by means hith- 
erto unknown in English literature, to ridicule 
and disparage estimable men, the victims of 
schemes into which they were almost unavoida- 
bly drawn, by gradual entanglements and the 
controlling force of circumstances ; it has become 
essentially necessary, in justice to all parties, the 
dead as well as the living, to show that Mr. Lock- 
hart's imputations against the Messrs. Ballantyne 
are equally at variance with the evidence which 
he has himself produced, and with facts which, 
having access to know them, he was bound to 
make himself master of, before presuming to ap- 

be a strange " effect of a lofty and modest nature ; " one, 
indeed, which we should never have a priori anticipated 
from our OAvn knowledge of human nature. And, on the 
other hand, with regard to the assertion that Sir Walter 
Scott's alleged indiscretion "in the selection of associates" 
arose " from generous confidence and a too much expanded 
benevolence," we shall, in the sequel, be under the necessity 
of testing the value of this rhetoric by a species of logic 
(that of figures) to which Mr. Lockhart seems to be in a 
great measure a stranger. 



14 IMPUTATIONS AGAINST THE BALLANTYNES". 

pear before the public in the character of an ac- 
cuser. It is, no doubt, a very hard matter to deal 
with charges resting solely upon such vain, and 
foolish, and untenable grounds as we have already 
described; and it is still harder to be, in some 
measure, under the necessity of proving a nega- 
tive — which, in fact, is, to a certain extent, the 
task we have here undertaken. But truth, recti- 
tude, and integrity are strong enough to assert 
their supremacy under almost any disadvantages, 
and to render the unjust accusation innocuous to 
all except the unjust accuser. With reference to 
James Ballantyne, in particular, his family, re- 
garding his good name as the best part of their 
inheritance, are by no means disposed to consent 
that his memory should be loaded Avith unmerit- 
ed obloquy in a work to which, at Mr. Lockhart's 
own request, he had on his death-bed contributed 
some of its most " precious contents." His rela- 
tions and friends, including the trustees appoint- 
ed under his last will, participate in the same 
feeling, enhanced as it is by the conviction that 
he was as "good," " virtuous," and "religious" 
a man as Sir Walter Scott wished his literary ex- 
ecutor to be : and the present publication is there- 
fore intended to refute, by plain facts, authentic 
documents, and indisputable evidence, every im- 
putation derogatory to Mr. Ballantyne which Mr. 
Lockhart has thought proper to introduce into his 
work. 

But, before entering into the discussion of the 



MR. JOHN BALLANTYNE. 15 

various questions which arose out of the alUance 
of Sir Walter Scott with Mr. James Ballantyne, 
it may be proper, by way of introduction, to no- 
tice here the mode in which Mr. John Ballantyne 
is introduced by Mr. Lockhart to his readers ; 
more especially as, by doing so, we shall at once 
convey to the reader a pretty accurate notion ot 
the whole tone and temper of his book, and, at 
the same time, exemplify his negligence of facts, 
when they come into competition with his habit- 
ual straining after effect, at whatever sacrifice it 
may be obtained. 

After stating that John was a younger brother 
of James, and " had been originally bred to his 
father's trade of a merchant" in Kelso, he con- 
tinues,—'' But James's rise in the world was not 
observed by him (John) without ambitious long- 
ings • for he, too, had a love, and he at least fan- 
cied that he had a talent, for literature. He left 
Kelso ahniptly for the chances of the English 
metropohs. After a short residence m London, 
where, among other things, he officiated for a few 
months as a clerk in a hanking-house, the con- 
tinued inteUigence of the printer's prosperity de- 
termined him to return to Scotland. Not finding 
any opening at the moment in Edinburgh, he 
again tried the shop at Kelso ; but his habits had 
not been improved by his short sojourn m Lon- 
don, and the business soon melted to nothing m 
his hands. His goods were disposed of by auc- 
tion for the benefit of his creditors; the paternal 



16 MISSTATEMENTS REGARDING 

shop was closed; and John agam quitted his 
birthplace under circumstances which, I shall 
show in the sequel, had left a deep and painful 
trace even upon that volatile mind." {^Life^ vol. 
ii. p. 196.) In this sketch of John Ballantyne's 
early history, there is a labored particularity, and 
seeming accuracy of specification, calculated to 
impose upon the reader, and to induce a belief 
that it must have been drawn up from detailed, 
as well as authentic information. But a more 
erroneous notion could not possibly be enter- 
tained. 

Mr. Lockhart's statement is inaccurate in al- 
most every particular. Mr. John Ballantyne did 
not '' leave Kelso abruptly for the English metro- 
polis ; " he never " ofiiciated as a clerk in a Lon- 
don banking-house ; " ''the continued intelligence 
of the printer's prosperity " did not " determine 
him to return to Scotland," because it coidd not, — 
James Ballantyne not having settled in Edinburgh 
until about seven years after his brother's re- 
turn from London ! It is incorrect, therefore, 
that, ^^ not finding an opening in Edinburgh, he 
again tried the shop at Kelso," he having made 
no attempt to find such '^opening" until nearly 
ten years subsequent to this period ; his business 
in Kelso did not "soon melt to nothing in his 
hands ; " and, lastly, it is not true that '' his 
goods were disposed of by auction for the benefit 
of his creditors." The different assertions con- 
tained in this short extract are all groundless and 



MR. JOHN BALLANTYNE. 17 

imaginary, without the shghtest foundation in 
fact, as Mr. Lockhart might have easily discover- 
ed by making the necessary inquiries. From 
those of his contemporaries who still survive the 
truth could have been ascertained, had the truth 
been wanted. 

The father of the Messrs. Ballantyne, a man of 
unchallengeable respectability, notwithstanding 
Mr. Lockhart' s paltry sneer about his being a 
petty shopkeeper, carried on the business of a 
dealer in goods of all sorts, as was then usual 
with merchants in country towns. Being in easy 
if not in affluent circumstances, the elder Bal- 
lantyne gave his sons a liberal, and what was 
then considered, in the place, an expensive edu- 
cation. But, as John was intended to follow the 
calling of his father, the latter, being desirous to 
afford him an opportunity of acquiring a more 
extensive and thorough knowledge of business 
than could be attained in a provincial town, sent 
him for that purpose to London, in the year 1794. 
This is what Mr. Lockhart has been pleased to 
describe as "leaving Kelso abruptly iox the chances 
of the English metropolis," — thereby insinuating 
that his departure was compulsatory, or caused by 
some discreditable occurrence. After spending 
about a year in London, John returned to Kelso 
in 1795, and was immediately admitted into part- 
nership with his father. In 1797 he married, and 
the partnership was very soon afterwards dis- 
solved. But his father, at the same time, resigned 



18 ANACHRONISMS NICKNAMES ASPERSIONS. 

to him one principal department of his business ; 
and this John Ballantyne continued to carry on 
until he left Kelso, and came to settle in Edin- 
burgh, in the year 1805. Hence, from the time 
when he left London until that when he settled in 
Edinburgh, he continued to reside as a merchant 
in Kelso ; and we therefore leave it to Mr. Lock- 
hart to explain how " the continued intelligence 
of the printer's prosperity," who did not settle in 
Edinburgh until the year 1802, could "determine" 
his brother John " to return to Scotland " in the 
year 1795. This brief recital furnishes a pointed 
specimen of Mr. Lockhart's historical accuracy, 
when he professes to relate facts.^ Mr. Lockhart, 
in conclusion, informs us that " John again quit- 
ted his birthplace under circumstances Avhich, / 
shall s/ioto in the sequel, had left a deep and pain- 
ful trace even upon that volatile mind." We have 
searched in vain "in the sequel" for the ominous 
disclosure here so formally announced ; and we 
are therefore left in complete ignorance as to the 
nature of the " circumstances" which produced 
so " deep and painful " an effect even upon the 
" volatile mind " of John Ballantyne. But, if 
Mr. Lockhart had no better authority for his 

* We have said, a?ite, that " the printer's " prosperity in 
Edinburgh could not have determined John Ballantyne to 
return to Scotland, '^ the printer ^^ not having settled in Edin- 
burgh till seven years thereafter. We may add, that John 
returned to Scotland two years before James had become a 
printer at all ! 



ANACHRONISMS — NICKNAMES ASPERSIONS. 19 

promised revelation than for the other '' circum- 
stances " above noticed, it must be admitted that 
for once he has exercised a sound discretion in 
omitting to fulfil his engagement. 

The foregoing piece of personal history is fol- 
lowed by a gross and libellous caricature of the 
two brothers. The one is described as a gour- 
mand ; the other is represented as something 
worse. Scott, it is said, used to apply to them 
certain grotesque nicknames, which Mr. Lock- 
hart, with his characteristic taste and feeling, 
has published. But still they had some merit, 
even in the eyes of the man who has so cruelly 
aspersed their memories. ' ' They entertained him 
(Scott) ; they both loved and revered him, and I 
believe would have shed their hearts' blood in his 
service ; but they both, as men of aflfairs, deeply 
injured him — and, above all, the day that brought 
John into pecuniary connexion with him was the 
blackest in his calendar. A more reckless, thought- 
less, improvident adventurer never rushed into 
the serious responsibilities of business." It was 
certainly something to '' entertain " Scott \ it was 
more '^ to love and revere him ; " and it was most 
of all that Mr. Lockhart '' believes" they '^ would 
have shed their hearts' blood in his service." 
But even these singular and, as we should think, 
redeeming virtues, were, it seems, overbalanced, 
if not extinguished, by the consideration that 
^' both, as men of affairs, deeply injured him ; " 
and, above all, that ' ' the day that brought John 



20 NATURE OF THE REFUTATION PROPOSED. 

into pecuniary connexion with him was the 
blackest in his calendar." 

Now, we shall prove that these assertions are 
contradicted by the evidence of Sir Walter, as 
quoted by Mr. Lockhart himself; — that, so far 
from his having been "deeply injured" by his 
connexion with the Ballantynes, he was thereby 
greatly benefited ; — that his own large expendi- 
ture absorbed the whole profits of the printing 
establishment, and much more besides, involving 
the elder brother in ruin at a period of life when, 
from the nature and extent of his business, he 
might otherwise have possessed a comfortable, if 
not an afiiuent independence ; — and that the day 
which brought '' John Ballantyne into pecuniary 
connexion with Scott," and which Mr. Lockhart 
styles " the blackest in his calendar," was event- 
ually productive of no greater calamity to Sir 
Walter than replacing in full his advances on the 
bookselling business, '^ with a balance of a thou- 
sand pounds," notwithstanding the most impru- 
dent undertakings in which he had embarked. 
All these circumstances will fall under our review 
in the sequel, where, eschewing the example of 
Mr. Lockhart, we shall endeavor to make our 
statements square with our proofs ; leaving it to 
others to draw upon their imagination, which is 
at all times an easier matter than to submit to the 
drudgery of examining facts. In the meantime, 
as he tells us that " a more reckless, thoughtless, 
improvident adventurer" than John Ballantyne 



SCOTT's character of JOHN BALLANTYNE. 21 

"never rushed into the serious responsibilities 
of business;" and as he even insinuates that his 
integrity was by no means of a kind to be rehed 
upon, we shall take leave to oppose to the dam- 
natory statements and innuendoes of Mr. Lock- 
hart the decisive evidence of Sir Walter Scott, 
even when writing in a moment of irritation and 
displeasure. In a letter, dated the 18th of May, 
1813, addressed to Mr. John Ballantyne, Sir Wal- 
ter, in conclusion, says, — "Adieu, my dear John. 
I have the most sincere regard for you, and you 
may depend on my considering your interest with 
quite as much attention as my own. If I have 
ever expressed myself with irritation in speaking 
of this business [the disposal from the stock of 
John Ballantyne and Co. to Constable's firm of 
certain unsaleable books and copyrights], you 
must impute it to the sudden, extensive, and im- 
expected embarrassments in which I found my- 
self involved all at once. If to your real goodness 
of heart and integrity^ and to the quickness and 
acuteness of your talents, you added habits of 
more universal circumspection, and, above all, 
the courage to tell disagreeable truths to those 

YOU HOLD IN regard, I PRONOUNCE THAT THE WORLD 
never HELD SUCH A MAN OF BUSINESS. TllCSC it mUSt 

be your study to add to your other good quali- 
ties." — {^Life^ vol. iii. pp. 59, 60.) 

This, then, is the character given by Sir Wal- 
ter Scott, writing under irritated feelings, of the 
person Mr. Lockhart describes as the " most reck- 



22 scott's character of john ballantyne 

less, thoughtless, improvident adventurer that 
ever rushed into the serious responsibilities of 
business." If to his "real goodness of heart and 
integrity " he had " added habits of more universal 
circumspection, and, above all, the courage to tell 
disagreeable truths to those he held in regard," — 
such, for instance, as Sir Walter himself, — the 
latter would have pronounced " that the world 
never held such a man of business : " in a word, 
to be perfect in all respects, John Ballantyne had 
only " to add these to his other good qualities." 
But, according to Mr. Lockhart, he was a "most 
reckless, thoughtless, improvident adventurer," 
without reflection and without probity, having 
neither steadiness, consistency, nor principle of 
any kind, and withal, a sort of picaroon or plun- 
derer in a small way.^ Whom, then, are we to 
believe 7 Sir Walter Scott or Mr. Lockhart ? — the 
friend who knew him thoroughly, and entertained 
for him " the most sincere regard." founded upon 

* "John," says Mr. Lockhart, "had many amiable as 
well as amusing qualities, and I am far from wishing to 
charge him with any deep or deliberate malversation. Sir 
Walter's own epithet of ' my little picaroon ' indicates all 
that I desired to imply on that score." {Life, vol. iii. p. 110.) 
"All!" why, picaroon means robber or plunderer, and the 
epithet " little " only limits the extent, but does not affect 
the quality of the imputation. But how, it may be asked, 
came Sir Walter to apply such a term to the friend he loved 
and esteemed ? We answer — ^jestingly, in a copy of doggerel 
Verses, refusing to own the authorship of Waverley, and 



CONTRASTED WITH THAT GIVEN BY MR. LOCKHART. 23 

that knowledge ; or the biographer who did not 
know him at all, yet years after his death has 
attempted to attaint his name and stigmatise his 
memory 1 In such a case, the public, we think, 
can have but little difficulty in coming to a deci- 
sion. 

One word more, illustrative of the feelings en- 
tertained by Sir Walter Scott towards the object 
of this posthumous defamation. Mr. John Ballan- 
tyne died at Edinburgh on the 16th of June, 1821, 
and was interred in the Canongate churchyard 
there. At the funeral, Scott, affected by the loss 
he had sustained, for such he evidently considered 

which verses were never intended for any eye but that of 
him to whom they were addressed. Here they are, in all 
their nakedness, as published by Mr. Lockhart : — 

" No, John, I will not own the book — 

I won't, you Picaroon. 
When next I try St. Grubby's brook, 
The A of Wa— shall bait the hook, 

And flat fish bite as soon 
As if before them they had got 
The worn-out wriggler, Walter Scott." 

It cannot be said of Mr. Lockhart's philosophy of char- 
acter, that it is deep-drawn or far-fetched. A word jocularly 
stuck into a copy of doggerel verses, to serve as a peg upon 
which to hang a rhyme, is quite sufficient for his purpose, 
and suffices to attach an odious imputation to the name of 
one whose integrity was, in his lifetime, approved by the 
person who had enjoyed the very best opportunities of putting 
it to the test. 



24 DEATH OF 3IR. JOHN EALLA.NTYXE. 

it.=^ '-cast his eye along the overhanging Une of 
the CaUon Hill, with its gleaming walls and 
towers, and then, turning to the grave again, ' / 
feel,' he whispered in Mr. Lockhart's ear, — -I fed 
as if there would be less sunshine for me frora this 
day forth: '' We are told by Mr. Lockhart him- 
self that he had been ••'visibly and profomidly 
shaken"" by the death of his friend : and can any 
one think so meanly of Sir Walter Scott, even on 
the authority of his son-in-law and hterary exec- 
utor, as to suppose, for a moment, that he could 
have been thus affected in regard to a person such 
as Mr. Lockhart. for reasons best known to him- 
self, has described Mr. John Ballant^^ne ] or that. 
if the latter had been imworthy of his regard, he 
would have declared, over his yet unclosed grave, 
that he felt as if there would be less sunshine for 
him after the cold earth had been heaped upon 
the remains of the man whom he had so long 
loved ] 

* Sir Walter, writing to his son, immediately after the 
death of the friend whom he knew and liked so well, thus 
expressed himself: — " I have had a very great loss in poor 
John Ba]lant\-ne, who is gone, after a long illness. He 
persisted to the very last in endeavoring to take exercise, 
in which he was often imprudent, and was up and dressed 
the morning before his death. In his will, the grateful 
creature has left me a legacy of £2000, liferented, however, 
by his wife, and the rest of his little fortune goes betwixt 
his two brothers. [This legacy, however, for want of funds, 
was not paid.] I shall miss him very much, both in business, 
and as an easy and lively companion, v:ho u-as eternally active 



COPARTNERSHIP OF JAMES BALLANTYNE AND CO. 25 

There is some obscurity as to the constitution 
of the firm of James Ballantyne and Company, 
or, at least, as to Sir WaUer's original views in 
its formation; but it seems to us demonstrable 
that Scott contemplated a business connexion with 
Mr. Ballantyne a considerable time before the lat- 
ter left Kelso. A letter of Sir Walter's, addressed 
to Mr. Ballantyne in the spring of 1800, urging 
his removal to Edinburgh,—" a migration from 
Kelso to this place,"— and stating a variety of 
reasons recommendatory of the project, taken in 
conjunction with what subsequently took place, 
appears to put this matter beyond the reach of 
doubt. After apologizing to Mr. Ballantyne for 
mentioning the plan, he proceeds thus : — 

" Three branches of printing are quite open in 
Edinburgh, all of which, I am well convinced, 
you have both the ability and inclination to unite 
in your person. The first is that of an editor of 
a newspaper which shall contain something of 
an uniform historical deduction of events, distinct 
from the farrago of detached and unconnected 
plagiarisms from the London paragraphs of the 
Swi' Perhaps it might be possible (and Gillon 

and obliging in whatever I had to do.'' If further proof were 
wanting of the estimation in which Mr. John Ballantyne 
was held by his friend and patron, we might add, that shortly 
after his death Sir Walter commissioned Mr. Allan, the 
eminent artist, to paint a small portrait of him from re- 
collection, to be hung up in Abbotsford, where it still re- 
mains. 

B 



26 OBJECTS CONTEMPLATED BY SCOTT. 

has promised to make inquiry about it) to treat 
with the proprietors of some estabhshed paper — 
suppose the Caledonian Mercury — and we would 
all struggle to obtain for it some celebrity. To 
this might be added a ' Monthly Magazine ' and 
' Caledonian Annual Register,' if you will ; for 
both of which, with the excellent literary assist- 
ance which Edinburgh at present affords, there 
is a fair opening. The next object would natur- 
ally be Session papers, the best paid work which 
a printer undertakes, and of which, I dare say, 
you would soon have a considerable share ; for, 
as you make it your business to superintend your 
proofs yourself, your education and abilities would 
insure your employers against the gross and pro- 
voking blunders which the poor composers are 
often obliged to submit to. The publication of 
works, either ancient or modern, opens a third 
fair field for ambition. The only gentleman who 
attempts any thing in that way is in very bad 
health ; nor can I, at any rate, compliment either 
the accuracy or the execution of his press. I 
believe it is well understood that, with equal at- 
tention, an Edinburgh press would have superior 
advantages even to those of the metropolis ; and, 
though I would not advise launching into that 
line at once, yet it would be easy to feel your way 
by occupying your press in this manner on vacant 
days only." Sir Walter adds — " It appears to 
me that such a plan, judiciously adopted and 
diligently pursued, opens a fair road to an ample 



MR. LOCKHART's prophecies AFTER THE EVENT. 27 

fortune. In the meanwhile, the Kelso Mail might 
be so arranged as to be still a source of some ad- 
vantage to you ; and I dare say, if wanted, 
pecimiary assistance might he procured to assist 
yoii at the outset, either upon terms of a share or 
otherwise.'''' — {Life, vol. i. pp. 320, 321.) 

This plan, as Mr. Lockhart conceives, was 
'' primarily suggested by the friendly interest 
which he (Sir Walter) took in Ballantyne's 
fortunes ; " but it must be equally obvious that 
he had private views of his own ; and, according- 
ly, we find that Mr. James Ballantyne had not 
been long in Edinburgh when his friend ef- 
fected the object which he had from the first con- 
templated, and got himself " admitted as a third- 
sharer in his business." Mr. Lockhart now pauses 
to comment, palliate, explain, and prophesy after 
the event. " The alliance with Ballantyne," says 
he, " soon infected him (Scott) with the proverbial 
rashness of mere mercantile adventure;" and 
"hence," he adds, in conclusion, "by degrees 
was woven a web of entanglement from which 
neither Ballantyne nor his adviser had any means 
of escape." Doubtless, " a web of entanglement " 
was woven, but certainly not from " the rashness 
of mere mercantile adventure." The profits of 
the printing concern were at that time twice as 
large as those that are generally derived from this 
business now~a-days ; and, if they had been ap- 
plied to their legitimate purpose, they would have' 
soon un woven the meshes of any " entanglement ' 



28 THE BOOKSELLING BUSINESS. 

proper to the business. It is true that the rash- 
ness of Scott's hterary schemes — the extreme 
imprudence of which his biographer has not at- 
tempted to disguise — must have considerably em- 
barrassed both himself and his partner ; but even 
these were not the cause of Scott's ultimate " en- 
tanglements," as Mr. Lockhart asserts in a subse- 
quent part of the work : the business of the print- 
ing-house having been ample enough to conquer 
all the difficulties which sprmig from that source. 
Neither was the unfortunate bookselling business 
— " begun," as Mr. Lockhart most truly says, 
" in the short-sighted heat of pique, and conduct- 
ed with the extravagant folly of a raw speculator 
in the perilous trade of publishing " — in any way 
the cause of the embarrassments in which Sir 
Walter Scott became eventually involved. Even 
although it had, his biographer would not have 
been entitled to complain ; for it was entirely of 
Scott's own seeking. That concern was estab- 
lished to meet his own views at the time ; he 
having a one-half -share, =^ and James and John 
Ballantyne one-fourth share each, with a salary 
to the latter as manager. But, although the diffi- 
culties arising from the bookselling concern were 
troublesome at the time, they Avere not lasting. 
John Ballantyne, in his " Memorandum," — which 

* Mr. Lockhart states incorrectly [Life, vol. ii. p. 223) 
that the bond of copartnership only bound Scott " as one- 
iAi?-<:? partner ; " he had a one-half share, as mentioned above. 



MISREPRESENTATIONS RESPECTING IT. 29 

Mr. Lockhart quotes, but does not condescend to 
inform us how or by what means it chanced to 
come into his hands, ^ — attributes them in part to 
'' the most extravagant and foohsh advances from 
its funds to the printing concern;" in other words, 
to the paying the accounts due for printing the 
^^unjyromising^^ hterary adventures in which 
Scott rashly embarked, and which have been 
pretty correctly enumerated by Mr. Lockhart 
himself f 

* When the papers of Mr. John Ballantyne were, after 
his death, examined by his executors, there was found 
amongst them a sealed packet, superscribed, " Open not, 
read not," and which, was taken charge of by Sir Walter 
Scott. Qumre — Was the " Memorandum " above referred 
to among the contents of this packet ? 

t To give our readers some idea of these " adventures," 
and at the same time to show how " the Ballantynes " con- 
ducted themselves, we shall quote the following passage 
from the Life (vol. ii. pp. 331, 332) :— " The publishing firm 
was as yet little more than a twelvemonth old, and already 
James (Ballantyne) began to apprehend that some of their 
mightiest undertakings loould wholly disappoint Scotfs prog- 
nostications. He speaks with particular alarm of the edi- 
tion of Beaumont and Fletcher's plays, of which Weber 
had now dismissed several volumes from his incompetent 
and presumptuous hand. How Scott should ever have 
countenanced the project of an edition of an English book 
of this class by a mere drudging German appears to me 
quite inexplicable. He placed at Weber's disposal his own 
annotated copy, which had been offered some years before 
for the use of Gifford ; but Weber^s text is thoroughly dis- 
graceful, and so are all the notes, except those which he 
owed to his patron's own pen. James Ballantyne augurs. 



30 REAL CAUSE OF SCOTt's EMBARRASSMENTS. 

But even the bad stock, — and none could possi- 
bly be worse, — accumulated in consequence of 
those rash and ill-judged speculations, was, in the 
end, disposed of upon advantageous terms ; the 
house met all its engagements ; and Sir Walter, 
who ultimately became the sole creditor, ''paid 
even himself in fiill^ with a balance of a thousand 
pounds.'^ What, then, it has justly been asked, 
''becomes of the ruin which John Ballantyne had 
entaifed upon Sir Walter, if, after all the wild 
speculations in which Scott had involved the 
young and starved concern, he was paid in full^ 
and a thousand pounds more ? " To every reader 
of Mr. Lockhart's work it must be as clear as 
noonday that Sir Walter Scott's embarrassments 
did not spring from his connexion with the Bal- 
lantynes, either as printers or booksellers ; but ori- 
ginated solely in his ambition to become a landed 
proprietor, and to "endow a family," before he 
had acquired the means of effecting either upon 

and well might he do so, not less darkly as to the ' Aston 
Speculation ; ' that is, the bulky collection entitled * Tixal 
Poetry.' ' Over this,' he says, ' the (Edinburgh) Review 
of the Sadler (Sadler's &tate Papers) has thrown a heavy 
cloud; the fact is, it seems to me to have ruined it. Here 
is the same editor, and the same printer, and your name 
withdrawn. I hope you agree with John and me that this 
Aston business ought to be got rid of at almost any sacri- 
fice. We could not now even ask a London bookseller to 
take a share ; and a net outlay of near £2500, upon a 
worse than doubtful speculation, is surely ' most tolerable, 
and not to be endured '. ' " 



REAL CAUSE OF SCOTT's EMBARRASSMENTS. 31 

any sound or secure foundation. And it is equally 
evident that Mr. James Ballantyne was event- 
ually ruined by Sir Walter Scott ;— rendered pen- 
niless at a time when he ought to have been able, 
if so inclined, to retire with a handsome compe- 
tence. If Sir Walter Scott had never been con- 
nected with James Ballantyne in business, but 
had contented himself with extending his patron- 
age to his old schoolfellow, it would have been 
infinitely better for both parties. Mr. Ballantyne 
would, in that case, have realized a respectable 
fortune ; and Sir Walter would have escaped the 
temptations presented by the facilities of a mer- 
cantile copartnership, to raise money for the pur- 
chase of lands for which he had not otherwise the 
mfeans of paying. 

Sir Walter Scott's embarrassments, and the 
consequent embarrassment and ruin of his partner, 
arose, as we have just stated, from his extensive 
purchases of land before he had realized money 
to pay for it ; and from his making a free use of 
the name of the company (with the consent of 
his partner, of course,) to meet the payments for 
these purchases,— a proceeding which led to a 
series of bill transactions with Constable and Com- 
pany, which, on the failure of that firm, brought 
ruin both on himself and on Mr. James Ballan- 
tyne. Money wanted was raised, first, by accep- 
tances to James Ballantyne and Co., for a portion 
of the amount required; and, secondly, by obtam- 
ing from Constable and Co., as if for literary 



32 REAL CAUSE OF SCOTt's EMBARRASSMENTS. 

'proj)erty^ promissory notes or acceptances for a 
further portion ; for these James Ballantyne and 
Co. granted acceptances to Constable and Co.: 
and the remaining portion was raised by James 
Ballantyne and Co. drawing bills on Constable 
and Co., and granting acceptances in return; — Sir 
Walter Scott, the sole party for whom these exten- 
sive accommodations were arranged, remaining 
all the while in the back-ground, unseen and 
unnamed. Whatever accommodation the printing 
concern may, at one period, have obtained from 
Constable and Co., the passion for land came 
speedily to monopolize the supplies ; and the ulti- 
mate application of the sums raised in the man- 
ner above stated was to pay the price of these 
imprudent purchases. Mr. Lockhart may possi- 
bly feel inclined to question the accuracy of this 
statement; but we shall establish it upon the 
authority of both Sir Walter Scott and Mr. James 
Ballantyne, which we conceive to be the best that 
can be produced. But, before doing so, it may 
be proper to introduce here an extract from the 
third volume of the Life (p. 62), illustrative of 
that sceleratus amor terrce, and other minor but 
expensive propensities, for which Sir Walter Scott 
was so conspicuously distinguished. 

" His preachments of regularity in book-keep- 
ing to John, and of abstinence from good cheer to 
James Ballantyne, were equally vain ; but, on the 
other hand, it must be allowed that they had some 
reason for displeasure (the more felt because they 



ADMISSIONS OF MR. LOCKHART ON THIS SUBJECT. 33 

durst not, like him, express their feehngs), when 
they found that scarcely had these ' hard skir- 
mishes ' terminated, in the bargain of May 18th, 
(1813),=^ before Scott loas 'prepariyig fresh emhar- 
rassm.entfor himself [and others], by commencing 
a negotiation for a considerable addition to his pro- 
perty of Abbotsford. . . . The new property 
which Scott was so eager to acquire was that hilly 
tract stretching from the old Roman road near 
Turnagain towards the Cauldshields loch ; a then 
desolate and naked mountain-mere. To obtain 
this lake at one extremity of his estate, as a con- 
trast to the Tweed at the other, was a prospect 
for which hardly any sacrifice %oould have appeared 
too much ; and he contrived to gratify his ivishes 
in the course of that July to which he had spoken 
of hwnself in May as looking forioard ' icith 
the deepest anxiety.'' Nor was he, I must add, 
more able to control some of his minor tastes [for 
expensive ifri^e^,! old armor, swords, guns, relics of 
the olden time, and such like]." And, in another 
place, — " In a word, his foibles were well known, 
and many persons about him took care to profit 
by them. Dance who chose, he commonly began 
by paying the piper, from what quarter soever the 
mo7iey might comeP 

The whole of that financial system by which 

* This alludes to the treaty with Constable and Co. about 
part of the unsaleable stock of John Ballantyne and Co. 
t Sir Walter's own expression, — see Lije^ vol. vi. p. 138. 



34 FINANCIAL SYSTEM ADOPTED AND FOLLOWED, 

these cravings were partially satisfied must now 
be laid open. Mr. Lockhart alone is responsible 
for the necessity of the exposure. He has stated, 
in broad and unqualified terms, that Sir Walter 
Scott never drew money from the printing con- 
cern ; and in one sense this may be said to be true. 
But he did what was precisely the same thing. 
For, by a document before us, dated the 17th of 
April, 1823, entitled, " Memorandum as to James 
Ballantyne and Co.'s Accounts," it appears that 
the " amount of discounts paid on Sir Walter 
Scott's account, from 15th May, 1822, to 17th 
April, 1823, h^m^ eleven months^ was £1146, 19s. 
3d. !" — in other words, at the rate of more than 
£1200 a-year, exclusive of exchanges on remit- 
tances, and bill-stamps. Two thirds of the entire 
profits of the business were thus expended in rais- 
ing money solely for the accommodation of Sir 
Walter Scott. 

But the real state of the case may be brought 
out in a still more explicit and unchallengeable 
form. In the year 1822, James Ballantyne and 
Co. thought proper to balance their afi'airs, and, 
Luider some new arrangements, to enter into a new 
contract of copartnership. This instrument was 
executed on the 1st of April that year. The vidi- 
inus then made up by an agent mutually em- 
ployed by the parties is now before us ; and it 
shows that the bills then current, in the name of 
James Ballantyne and Co., hut for Sir Walter 
Scoffs private accommodation alone^ amounted to 



ACCOMMODATION BILLS. 35 

£26,896, 5s. lid. ; whilst neither at that time 
nor subsequently was there a single accommoda- 
tion-bill current on account of the company itself. 
No means having been taken by Sir Walter Scott 
to clear oif any part of this large sum, it was kept 
floating by successive renewals of accommoda- 
tion-bills, the most expensive of all modes of rais- 
ing money, not to say also the most precarious ; 
and the consequence was, that a large and con- 
stantly augmenting addition was made to the 
original amount, by the expense attending these 
multiplied renewals. But, further, whenever Sir 
Walter was in want of money for any purpose, 
ordinary or extraordinary, a new note was asked 
for and obtained. If a builder received a bill for 
work done at Abbotsford, it was generally made 
payable by a note on James Ballantyne and Co. ; 
or if a remittance was necessary to buy Sir Wal- 
ter's eldest son a step in his regiment, James Bal- 
lantyne and Co. were called upon to assist in the 
same form. Thus the sum which in December, 
1822, was only £26,896, 5s. lid. had, at the time 
of the bankruptcy in 1826, been increased, by 
stamps, discounts, and bank exchange, by £8085, 
3s. Id. ; and by promissory notes granted to Sir 
Walter Scott by James Ballantyne and Co. for 
the other purposes enumerated, by the sum of 
£17,142, 18s. lOd.^ It is so far from being true, 

* See General Abstract of Sir Walter Scott's Accounts, 
p. 73. 



36 POSITION OF MR. JAMES BALLANTYNE. 

therefore, as Mr. Lockhart affirms, that Sir Wal- 
ter Scott never drew any thing from the business, 
that there is the most conchisive evidence to show, 
that, excepting the means necessary to carry it 
on, and Mr. James Ballantyne's personal and 
family expenses, he drew from it all its earnings, 
and more than all. Mr. James Ballantyne's 
whole share of the profits, deducting the expense 
of his family, was floating in the business at the 
command of Sir Walter Scott, besides the profit 
accruing to him from his one-sixth share of all 
the new novels after the death of his brother 
John. He had cast his bread upon the waters, 
but it did not return to him after many days of 
labor and sorrow. He lost all, and was, besides, 
stripped of every thing he possessed, except his 
household furniture. Not a wreck was saved, — 
not even his house, which had been bought with 
his wife's fortune, and which, in the fulness of his 
confidence, he had not taken any means to secure 
to her and her children. 

All this may appear to be the very excess of 
unreflecting simplicity; and Mr. Ballantyne may 
be blamed for his apparent facility in thus lending 
himself to the purposes of Sir Walter Scott, and 
carrying his accommodations to such an extent. 
But, in judging of this matter, the relative posi- 
tions of the parties should be duly weighed and 
considered. Our impression is that he had no 
choice left ; Sir Walter Scott, to use his own ex- 
pression, "had laid down the law," and refusal 



POSITION OF MR. JAMES BALLANTYNE. 37 

was not to be thought of. Besides, Mr. Bahan- 
tyne thought that, if matters came to the worst, 
there was Abbotsford, which would secure every 
one, and make up for every deficiency. Still, it 
is certain that he had, occasionally, misgivings on 
the subject ; for, notwithstanding Mr. Lockhart's 
assertion to the contrary, he did " make serious 
efforts to master these formidable balances of 
figures." We have seen them, and cannot, there- 
fore, admit Mr. Lockhart's assertion against incon- 
trovertible evidence. He summed up Sir Walter 
Scott's liabilities, or rather the liabilities of James 
Ballantyne and Co. on his account ; and he set 
against these Sir Walter's means of meeting them 
summarily, should that become necessary ; con- 
cluding his estimate of available resources with, 
— '' then add Abbotsford, so there is the head for 
the washing." 

It is at once curious and painful to observe how 
anxiously Mr. Lockhart labors to throw odium on 
'' the Ballantynes," on James as well as on John, 
though in a manner somewhat different. Where 
he condescends in any instance to appeal to evi- 
dence, or to profess to rest his statements upon 
facts, we shall always be ready to join issue with 
him ; confident of being able to refute his allega- 
tions, and expose his misrepresentations. But, in 
such a case as the following, where he deliberately 
attempts, on his own authority alone, to repeat 
the injuries he had previously inflicted, and to 
lacerate afresh the feelings he had already wound- 



38 MR. lockhart's apologies for his calumnies. 

ed, we can do little more than submit the outrage 
to the judgment of the public ; asking them mere- 
ly to apply to such representations as this the 
same standard of criticism which we shall furnish 
in regard to statements precise enough to be met 
and refuted by direct disproof. 

" The early history of Scott's connexion with the 
Ballantynes," says he, " has been already given in 
abundant detail ; and I have felt it my duty not to 
shrink, at whatever fain to my own feelings (!) or 
those of others, from setting down plainly and 
directly my own impressions of the character, 
manners, and conduct of those two very dissim- 
ilar brothers. =^ I find, without sinyrise^ that my 
representations of them have not proved satisfac- 
tory to their surviving relations. That I cannot 
help— though I sincerely regret having been com- 
pelled, injustice to Scott, to become the instrument 
for opening old wounds in kind bosoms, animated, 
I doubt not, like my own, by veneration for his 
memory, and respected by me for combining that 
feeling with a tender concern for names so inti- 

* It is much to be regretted that Mr. Lockhart should 
have " felt it his duty not to shrink " from giving so much 
" pain to his own feelings and those of others," by recording 
" impressions " which are only complained of by reason of 
his gross exaggerations and injustice. Would it not have 
been better if he had revised his " impressions," and spared 
his "feelings" any "pain," to which his subjecting him- 
self on this account was altogether a penance of superero- 
gation on his part ? 



MR. LOCKHARt's apologies FOR HIS CALUMNIES. 39 

mately connected with his throughout long years 
of mutual confidence. But I have been entirely 
mistaken if those to whom I allude, or any others 
of my readers, have interpreted any expressions 
of mine as designed to cast the slightest imputa- 
tion on the moral rectitude of the elder Ballantyne. 
No suspicion of that nature ever crossed my mind. 
I believe James to have been, from first to last, a 
perfectly upright man ; that his principles were of 
a lofty stamp — his feelings pure even to simplicity. 
His brother John had many amiable, as well as 
amLising qualities ; and I am far from wishing to 
charge him with any deep or deliberate malver- 
sation. Sir Walter's own epithet of ' my little 
picaroon ' indicates all that I desire to imply on 
that score. But John was, from mere giddiness 
of head and temper, incapable of conducting 
any serious business advantageously, either for 
himself or for others ; nor dare I hesitate to ex- 
press my conviction that, from feelings of a dif- 
ferent sort, honest James ivas hardly a better nia^i- 
ager than the j^icaroori. 

" He had received the education, not of a print- 
er, but a solicitor; and he never, to his dying 
day, had the remotest knowledge or feeling of 
what the most important business of a master- 
printer consists in. He had a fine taste for the 
effect of types — no establishment turned out more 
beautiful specimens of the art than his ; but he 
appears never to have understood that types 
needed watching as well as setting. If the page 



40 FURTHER ASPERSIONS. 

looked handsome, he was satisfied In a 

word, James never comprehended that in the 
greatest and most regularly employed manufac- 
tory of this kind (or indeed of any kind) the 
profits are likely to be entirely swallowed up, un- 
less the acting master keeps up a most wakeful 
scrutiny, from week to week, and from day to 
day, as to the machinery and the materials. So 
far was he from doing this, that, durmg several of 
the busiest and most important years of his con- 
nexion with the establishment in the Canongate, 
he seldom crossed its doors. He sat in his own 
elbow-chair, in a comfortable library, situated in 
a different street; not, certainly, an idle man — quite 
the reverse, though naturally indolent — but the 
most negligent and inefficient of master-printers." 
—{Life, vol. vi. pp. 109, 110, 111.) 

We beg leave here to observe, first, that it 
would be very satisfactory if Mr. Lockhart 
would, in some shape or other, show the public 
in what respect "justice to Scott" placed him 
under the stern necessity of vilifying friends who 
had been so " intimately connected with him 
throughout long years of mutual confidence," 
and, in doing so, " becoming the instrument for 
opening old wounds in kind bosoms." For our 
part, we are unable to discover any relation what- 
ever between the means and the end — between 
the evil confessedly done, and the object alleged 
as "compelling" its commission ;' and we shall 
be happy to receive information on a point respect- 



REPLY TO MR. LOCKHART's CHARGES. 41 

ing which our own unaided efforts have failed to 
enlighten us. 

But, in the next place, and overlooking the 
complimentary cant interwoven in this passage, 
let us attend for a moment to the substance of 
Mr. Lockhart's statements. Mr. Ballantyne, who 
was " not, certainly, an idle man— quite the re- 
verse, though naturally indolent," yet ''most 
negligent and inefficient," appears to have pos- 
sessed the most incongruous and contradictory- 
attributes. " He was busy, indeed; and inesti-- 
Quahly serviceable to Scott icas his labor:' " It is 
most true that Sir Walter's hurried and careless 
method of composition rendered it absolutely neces- 
sary that whatever he wrote should be subjected 
to far more than the nsiial a^nount of inspection 
required at the hands of the printer ; and it is 
equally so that it loould have been extremely diffi- 
cidt to find atiother man willing and able to bestoio 
such time ayid care on his proof-sheets as they nni- 
formly received from James:' Now, to a less 
ingenious person than Mr. Lockhart, it would 
probably have occurred, that the circumstance 
here stated might afford a satisfactory solution of 
the anomaly by which he is so sorely vexed. 
"Sir Walter's hurried and careless method of 
composition," and the " extreme difficulty of find- 
ing another man willing and able" to remove 
its inaccuracies and imperfections, sufficiently 
accoimt for the arrangement which Mr. Lockhart 
at once censures and proves to have been neces- 



42 REPLY TO MR. LOCKHART's CHARGES. 

sary. James, however, did quit his '' comfort- 
able Hbrary," and ''occupied, during many hours 
every day, a small cabinet on the premises in the 
Canongate ; " but still Mr. Lockhart is not satis- 
fied. The inevitable sins of " correcting proof- 
sheets," and " writing critical notes and letters 
to the Author of Waverley," — labors which, by 
his own showing, ivere inevitable, and could be 
performed by no one else, — shut up his bowels of 
compassion, and draw down severe reprehension 
on the memory of the friendly corrector. 

In page 113 of the same volume, Mr. Lockhart 
says, — " I fancy it will be only too apparent that 
he (James Ballantyne) never made even one 
serious effort to master the formidable balances of 
figures thus committed to his sole trust, but in 
which his all was not all that was involved." 
,The biographer is here doubly mistaken. In the 
first place. Sir Walter Scott kept a private record 
of these bill engagements, which his son-in-law 
may, by possibility, have seen. Secondly, Mr. 
James Ballantyne's account of them was so cor- 
rectly kept, that, by a simple addition, he could 
at any time have told their exact amount. Be- 
sides, they were not, as Mr. Lockhart is pleased 
to insinuate, entered into by Mr. James Ballan- 
tyne without Sir Walter Scott's knowledge. On 
the contrary, he had frequent interviews with 
Scott, in which these matters formed the subject of 
conference ; and once a month Mr. Ballantyne 
waited upon Sir Walter with a statement of the 



HABITS OF SCOTT AS DESCRIBED IN THE " LIFE." 43 

bills that were to become due in the course of the 
month following, in order to determine as to the 
means to be employed for retiring them, which, 
of course, were found in a series of new bills. 
What, then, can Mr. Lockhart mean by asserting 
so broadly that Mr. Ballantyne " shut his eyes to 
the serious liabilities in which he was involved, 
and never made even one serious effort to master 
the formidable balances of figures committed to 
his sole trust? " 

A few pages after {Life^ vol. vi. pp. 116, 117), 
Mr. Lockhart says, — " The reader may perhaps 
remember a page in a former volume where I 
described Scott as riding with Johnny Ballantyne 
and myself round the deserted halls of the ancient 
family of Riddell, and remarking how much it 
increased the wonder of their ruin that the late 
baronet had ' kept day-book and ledger as regu- 
larly as any cheesemonger in the Grass-market.' 
It is, nevertheless, true that >S'ir Walter kept from 
first to last as accurate an account of his oivn per- 
sonal expenditure as Sir John Riddell coidd have 
done of his extravagant outlay on agricultural 
experiments. The instructions he gave his son, 
when first joining the 18th Hussars, about the 
best method of keeping accounts, were copied 
from his own practice. I could, I believe, place 
before my reader the sum-total of sixpences that 
it had cost him to ride through turnpike-gates 
during a period of thirty years. This was, of 
course, an early habit mechanically adhered to ; 



44 HABITS OF SCOTT AS DESCRIBED IN THE ^' LIFE." 

but hoio strange that the man who could persist, 
however mechanically, in noting down every 
shilling that he actually drew from his purse, 
should have allowed others to pledge his credit^ 
year after year, upon sheafs of accommodation- 
paper, the time for paying which up must cer- 
tainly come, without keeping any efficient watch 
on their proceedings — without knoioing^ any one 
Christmas^ for hoio onany thousands^ or rather 
tens of thousands^ he was responsible as a printer 
in the Canongate ! " 

This alleged anomaly in Sir Walter Scott's 
habits is indeed so very " strange," that, consi- 
dered apart from evidence, it must appear alto- 
gether incredible ; and, in point of fact, we have 
already shown that it is a mere fancy of his im- 
aginative biographer. He who was so careful in 
noting down the sixpences and shillings, as often 
as he drew them from his purse, was not likely 
to be unmindful of the pounds ; far less afflicted 
with the unparalleled infirmity here attributed to 
him, of ^' allowing others to pledge his credit, 
year after year, upon sheafs of accommodation- 
paper," and at the same time remaining content- 
edly in ignorance of ''the thousands, or rather 
tens of thousands, for which he was responsible 
as a printer in the Canongate." He might be 
lavish or extravagant in his expenditure, but he 
was never indiflerent to, or ignorant of, the na- 
ture and extent of his liabilities. Probably no 
man, situated as he was, ever kept a more wake- 



NATURE OF SCOTt's RESPONSIBILITIES. 45 

ful and keen eye on the progress of the pecuniary 
transactions in the expUcation of which he was 
so deeply interested. Mr. Lockhart, however, 
seems entirely to forget what we have shown to 
be the real state of the case,— namely, that Sir 
Walter Scott's fearful responsibility was not " as 
a printer in the Canongate," but as an extensive 
purchaser of land, and co-obligant with Constable 
a^i^cl Co. ;— though, in the paragraph immediately 
preceding the one we have quoted, he informs us 
that, as late as May 1825, Scott was " meditating 
a new purchase to the extent of £40,000," to be 
paid for, of course, upon the credit of James Bal- 
lantyne and Co., and Constable and Co.=^ Mr. 

* By the month of November, however, " a change 
came o'er the spirit of his dream ; " but, in registering his 
« purpose to practise economics," he unconsciously lets us 
see that, until then, the science had been known to him only 
in theory. The following extract from the Diary is extremely 
significant in several views :— 

" I here register my purpose to practise economics, i 
have little temptation to do otherwise. 

" Abbotsford is all that I can make it, and too large for 
the property : so I resolve,— 

" No more building ; 

" No purchases of land, till times are quite safe ; 

" No buying books or expensive trifles—/ mean to any 

extent ; — and . 

"Clearing off incumbrances, with the returns ot tins 

year's labors. 

"Which resolutions, with my health and my habits of 
industry, will make me ' sleep in spite of thunder.' " [Uf^ 
of Scott, vol. vi. p. 138.) 



46 BILLS AND COUNTER BILLS. 

Lockhart, therefore, may spare his '' sighmg 
comments," or, if he dehghts therein, reserve 
them for those who were the real victims of that 
mania which destroyed all within its sphere of 
operation. 

Nor is Mr. Lockhart in any respect more for- 
tunate in his attempt to account for the origin of 
what he terms " counter -hills ^^'' — that is, the bills 
drawn by Constable and Co. in lieu of those 
granted to James Ballantyne and Co., for behoof 
of Sir Walter Scott, — and the use which was 
made of these bills. '' Owing to the original ha- 
bitual irregularities of John Ballantyne," says he, 
" it had been adopted. as the regular plan between 
that person and Constable, that, whenever the 
latter signed a bill for the purpose of the other's 
raising money among the bankers, there should, 
in case of his neglecting to take that bill up before 
[when ?] it fell due, be deposited a counter-bill, 
signed by Ballantyne, on which Constable might, 
if need were, raise a sum equivalent to that for 
which he had pledged his credit. I am told that 
this is an usual enough course among speculative 
merchants, and it may be so." This may or may 
not have been as Mr. Lockhart alleges, though, 
from the demonstrable inaccuracy of his state- 
ments regarding Mr. James Ballantyne, we are 
entitled to doubt ; but, whether this allegation be 
true or the reverse, the reflections in which he 
again indulges on the management of Sir Walter 
Scott's confidential agent have already been 



BILLS AND COUNTER BILLS. 47 

shown to be without foundation— mere random 
charges preferred without consideration, and 
wholly unsupported by evidence. But "mark 
the issue," Mr. Lockhart continues. "The plan 
went on under James's management, just as John 
had begun it. Under his management, also, such 
was the incredible looseness of it, the coin iter -hills ^ 
meant only for being sent into the market in the 
event of the 'primary hills being threatened with 
dishonor — these instruments of safeguard for Con- 
stable against contingent danger were allowed to 
lie uninquired about in Constable's desk, until 
they had swelled to a truly monstrous ' sheaf of 
stamps.' Constable's hour of distress darkened 
about him, and he rushed ivith these to the money- 
changers. They were nearly all flung into 

CIRCULATION IN THE COURSE OF THIS MADDENING PE- 
RIOD OF PANIC ! And by this one circumstance it 
came to pass, that, supposing James Ballantyne 
and Co. to have, at the day of reckoning, obliga- 
tions against them, in consequence of bill transac- 
tions with Constable, to the extent of £25,000, 
they were legally responsible for £50,000." {Life, 
vol. vi. p. 1 18). What is here stated seems at 
first view likely to be true ; the statement is, at 
any rate, exceedingly plausible; but, unfortu- 
nately for Mr. Lockhart' s credit and caution, it 
is not true ; and Ave are at a loss to conceive how 
he could have risked such a statement without 
asking for information on the subject, which se- 
veral persons were in a condition to afford him. 



48 REAL NATURE OF THESE BILLS EXEMPLIFIED. 

The truth is, " the counter-bills " were not 
" meant only for being sent into the market in 
the event of the primary bills being dishonored." 
They were as regularly discounted by Constable 
and Co. as the '' primary bills" were by James 
Ballantyne and Co. ; and they were as essential 
to the former of these houses as the others were 
to Sir Walter Scott. Lest this should be doubted, 
we shall print here, as a specimen, one statement 
of these "counters" and " primaries," which 
will place the whole matter in a very clear light. 
It is in the handwriting of Constable and Co.'s 
cashier at the time, Mr. Archibald Fife, and was 
enclosed in a letter from Mr. Cadell, then a part- 
ner of that house. 

" Edinburgh, 24ih June, 1822. 
Messrs. James Ballantyne & Co. 

With A. Constable & Co. 
For the following bills, viz. 

1822. Dr. Cr. 

Oct. 9. By their acceptance payable at 

Curries & Co., . . £640 7 days £0 12 3 

16. To our acceptance due tliis date, 642 2 " 

Dr. 2 
18. By their acceptance at Curries 

&Co., . . . 640 



Cr. 638 
28. To our acceptance due this date, 038 4 



Nov. 16. To our acceptance due this date, 643 9 7 
— By tlieirs at Curries & Co., 640 



Dr. 3 9 7 5 
21. To our acceptance due this day, 649 16 2 



Dr. 653 5 9 19 



OBSERVATIONS ON THIS SUBJECT. 49 

Dr. Cr. 

Brought forward £653 5 9 £ 19 3 

Nov. 21. By their acceptance at Curries 

and Co., . . . 640 

13 5 91 « 

— By exchange, interest, and stamps, 1117 8 

Dr. 1 8 1 
22. To our acceptance due this date, 638 14 3 Exchange, 10 18 5 



640 2 4 



— By theirs at Curries and Co., 640 2 4 £U 17 8" 

This plain statement, which is only one of many, 
may be taken as a fair sample of the whole ; and 
it completely overthrows Mr. Lockhart's theory of 
the bill transactions. In it we find the difference 
of interest nicely calculated, and the place indica- 
ted where the '^ counters " were to be negotiated; 
the expression "payable at Curries" showing 
that they were to be discounted in London by 
Constable and Co., and that they were to be paya- 
ble at the banking-house of Messrs. Curries, Raikes, 
and Co. Besides, it will be observed that this 
statement is dated the 24th June, 1 822, and that 
all the bills enumerated in it fell due in October 
and November the same year. How, then, could 
Constable have these bills in his desk in January, 
1826 ; or, if he had them, how could he have 
*' rushed with them to the money-changers," when 
they were behveen three andfotir years past due ? 
The thing is absurd. The bills were not in Consta- 
ble's desk. For observe the entry in the account : 
" By their (James Ballantyne and Co.'s) accept- 
ance payable at Curries & Co.,"— an entry which 
shows that the '' counter-bills" were to be nego- 
c 



50 OBSERVATIONS ON THIS SUBJECT. 

tiated^ and not " meant only for being sent into the 
market in the event of the primary bills being 
threatened with dishonor ; " — and this we know 
to have been the fact. What, then, becomes of 
the "truly monstrous sheaf of stamps" with 
which poor Constable, when his " hour of distress 
darkened about him," is said to have " rushed to 
the money-changers ? " The statement is either 
a creature of imagination alone, or of abused 
credulity. Supposing Constable to have been so 
utterly devoid of principle (which he was not) as 
to be capable of a proceeding like this, he had it 
not in his power to carry it into effect. The only 
bills which were in his desk, if there were any at 
all in it, consisted of such as the money-changers 
had 'previously refused to have any thing to do 
with ; and, consequently, the conduct imputed to 
him by Mr. Lockhart is at once as absurd and 
impossible as it is untrue. 

But this is not the only example of Mr. Lock- 
hart's '' incredible looseness " of statement on this 
subject. We have seen that, in the passage last 
quoted, the counter-bills are said to have been 
meant only for being sent into the market in the 
event of the primary bills being tlireatened with 
dishonor; yet, in page 114 of the same volume, 
Mr. Lockhart observes—" It is easy to see that, 
the moment the obligations became reciprocal^ there 
arose extreme peril of their coming to be hopelessly 
complicated^ True"; but does he imagine that 
James Ballantyne and Co. reciprocated their obli- 



scott's own view of these transactions. 51 

gations to Constable and Co., merely that Con- 
stable himself might accumulate in his desk a 
" truly monstrous sheaf of stamps," most of 
which, if they had lain there more than a few- 
months, would have been past due, and, of course, 
not receivable by any "money-changer" what- 
soever 7 

Sir Walter Scott, in his Diary, takes a just and 
proper view of these matters ; and, being the party 
most nearly concerned, he is by far the best author- 
ity on the subject. His testimony is surely entitled 
to great weight, and, if so, it is given most decid- 
edly in favor of James Ballantyne. Whence, then, 
has originated Mr. Lockhart's inordinate desire, 
by statements the most unfair and unfounded, to 
blacken the character, and prejudice the interests 
of the family, of one who never consciously in- 
jured him, and whom he addressed on his death- 
bed as the dear friend of Sir Walter Scott, — from 
whom he solicited and obtained " the most 'pre- 
cious materials " for Sir Walter's biography, — and 
whom he prays to continue to draw on his memory 
for more and more of these " invaluable details ^^^ 
at the same tinie earnestly hoping that his " health, 
for this and a thousand other good works, may be 
strengthened and restored ? " Whence could have 
sprung that posthumous animosity which pur- 
sues, with unrelenting hostility, the memory of 
the man on whom the reviler of his good name 
lavished expressions of esteem, gratitude, and 
friendship, at the very moment when he was 



52 scott's own view of these transactions. 

sinking into the grave, and whose last labors on 
earth were expended in gathering up and putting 
together recollections calculated to brighten the 
glory of Sir Walter Scott 7 Surely, if ever there 
was causeless vengeance, it is here displayed ; if 
ever there was an instance of calumny defeated 
by its own extravagance, it is found in the charges 
we have refuted. Mr. Lockhart, indeed, is the 
least formidable of all accusers ; for his imputa- 
tions are generally inconsistent with themselves, 
as well as the evidence upon which they profess 
to rest ; and he is so little acquainted with the 
real nature of the pecuniary transactions which 
he has undertaken to describe, that his statements 
commonly carry their own refutation along with 
them. 

Sir Walter Scott, however, expressed himself in 
a very different spirit towards his old friend and 
his companion in misfortune. When his " hour 
of distress darkened about him," he seemed to 
take a particular pleasure in rendering justice to 
one who had borne prosperity with moderation, 
and now proved himself ready to encounter ad- 
versity with fortitude. In his Diary, under date 
the 17th of January, Sir Walter writes, " James 
Ballantyne called this morning, good honest fel- 
low, with a visage as black as the crook. He 
hopes no salvation- — has, indeed, taken measures 
to stop. It is hard, after having fought such a 
battle." Again, he says, " Ballantyne behaved 
like himself^ and sinks the prospect of his own 



CORROBORATIVE DOCUMENTS. 53 

RUIN IN CONTEMPLATING MINE." Again, in a letter 
to Mr. Lockhart himself, written a few days after 
the insolvency was publicly known in Edinburgh 
(20th of January, 1826), he declares, — '' I have 

BEEN FAR FROM SUFFERING BY JaMES BaLLANTYNE. 

/ oioe it to him to say, that his difficulties, as well 
as his advantages, are owing to me." And at a 
later period, when James Ballantyne wished to 
obtain a personal discharge from the creditors, 
such a proceeding being no longer at variance 
with Sir Walter Scott's plans, the latter wrote to 
him in the following terms : — 

^' Dear Sir, 

1 am favored with your letter, and, so far as 
I am concerned, give my consent with great 
pleasure to your discharge, being satisfied that 

IN ALL YOUR TRANSACTIONS WITH ME YOU HAVE ACTED 
WITH THE UTMOST CANDOR AND INTEGRITY. 1 am, 

dear sir, your most obedient servant, 

(Signed) Walter Scott." 

It may be added that Mr. Ballantyne' s appli- 
cation was met in the same spirit by all the cred- 
itors, when he addressed himself to them individ- 
ually. This will sufficiently appear from the 
following, out of many answers of a similar kind 
which were received by him, and which form the 
best attestation to the character of any man simi- 
larly circumstanced. It is a copy of the answer 
which Messrs. Alexander Allan & Co., bankers, 



54 CHARACTER OF 

returned to his circular requesting their consent 
to his discharge : — 

"Sir, 

'' We deeply regret that you should have been 
exposed to such great affliction from an over con- 
fidence in others^ knowing, as we do, that your 
integrity and correct business habits should have 
led to a far different result. 

" We shall have much pleasure in signing your 
discharge, accompanied by our best wishes for 
your future prosperity. — We remain, dear sir, 
your very obedient servants, 

(Signed) Alex. Allan & Co." 

Mr. Lockhart's evident aversion to James Bal- 
lantyne ; his willing sneer ; his glibly repeated 
nicknames ; and his desire to impute to him, 
however unjustly, any blame in business matters 
which might divert attention from, or serve to 
lighten the weight of censure due to, others, — are 
too obvious to require notice."^ And where he 

* This hostile bias pervades every part of Mr. Lockhart's 
work. We have already quoted his caricature portraits of 
the two Ballantynes ; let us now see how he speaks of them 
incidentally. The following is his formal introductory ac- 
count of Mr. Constable : — 

" The great bookseller of Edinburgh was a man of calibre 
infinitely beyond these Ballantynes. Though with a strong 
dash of the sanguine, without which, indeed, there can be 
no great projector in any walk of life, Archibald Constable 
was one of the most sagacious persons that ever followed 



MR. lockhart's procedure. 55 

professes to relate facts, or ventures to make defi- 
nite assertions of an injurious nature, it will, in 
every instance, be found, upon examination, that 

his profession. . . . Indeed, his fair and very handsome 
physiognomy carried a bland astuteness of expression, not 
to be mistaken by any one who could read the plainest of 
nature's handwriting. He made no pretensions to litera- 
ture, though he was, in fact, a tolerable judge of it gener- 
ally, and particularly well skilled in the department of 
Scotch antiquities. He distrusted himself, however, in 
such matters, being conscious that his early education had 
been very imperfect ; and, moreover, he wisely considered 
the business of a critic as quite as much out of his proper 
line as authorship itself. But of that ' proper line,' and 
his own qualifications for it, his estimation was ample ; and, 
often as I may have smiled at the lofty serenity of his self- 
complacence, I confess I now doubt whether he rated him- 
self too highly as a master in the true science of the book- 
seller. He was as bold as far-sighted, and his disposition 
was as liberal as his views were wide." 

Now mark the purpose to which all this praise is imme- 
diately turned. Poor Constable is lauded at first to be 
damned afterwards ; but even this prolusion is intended to 
cover the stab which, through it, is directed at the Ballan- 
tynes. Mr. Lockhart continues : — " Had he (Constable) 
and Scott, from the beginning, trusted as thoroughly as they 
understood each other ; had there been no third parties to 
step in, flattering an overweening vanity on the one hand 
into presumption, and, on the other side, spurring the enter- 
prise that wanted nothing but a bridle, I have no doubt their 
joint career might have been one of unhrohen prosperity .^^ 
Prove this, Mr. Lockhart, if you please, and then, but not 
till then, we will believe it. " But the Ballantynes were 
jealous of the superior mind, bearing, and authority of Con- 
stable ; and, though he too had a liking for them both per- 



56 HIS APOLOGIES CONSIDERED. 

he either proceeds in total ignorance, or wantonly 
indulges in the most unpardonable distortions and 
misrepresentations. Indeed, he appears to have 
had a secret consciousness that his statements 

sonally — esteemed James's literary tact, and was far too 
much of a humorist not to be very fond of the younger 
brother's company — he could never away with the feeling, 
that they intervened unnecessarily, and left him but the 
shadow where he ought to have had the substantial share 
of confidence." Where, we ask, is the evidence of all this.' 
where does a trace of such "jealousy" as is here talked of 
appear ? and how came Scott, with all his shrewdness, and 
who understood Constable so well, to permit these brothers 
to stand between him and that " career of unbroken pros- 
perity " which, it is said, he would have entered upon by 
giving to Constable " the substantial share of confidence? " 
But let us hear Mr. Lockhart out. " On his part, again, he 
(Constable) was too proud a man to give entire confidence 
where that was withheld from himself; and more especially, 
I can well believe that a frankness of communication as to 
the real amount of his capital and general engagements in 
business, which would have been the reverse of painful to 
him in habitually confidential intercourse with Scott, was 
out of the question where Scott's proposals and suggestions 
were to be met in conference, not with his own manly sim- 
plicity, but the buckram potnpositi/ of the one, or the burlesque 
levity of the other, of his plenipotentiaries." {Life. vol. ii. 
pp. 198, 199, 200.) The good taste, as well as the consistent 
rectitude, displayed in the close of this passage — written by 
the man who did not wish, so he says, to wound unneces- 
sarily the feelings of the Ballantynes — will, no doubt, be 
appreciated by all ; and it will also be seen that the whole 
of the preposterous theory here disclosed has been invented 
and unfolded for the purpose of barbing these wretched per- 
sonalities. 



HIS APOLOGIES CONSIDERED. 57 

were ill fitted to stand the test of a searching in- 
quiry ; for, at the close of the strange preface to 
his seventh and last volume, there is the following 
remarkable passage : — " As for the reclamations 
which have been put forth on the score that I 
have wilfully distorted the character and conduct 
of other men, for the purpose of raising Scott at 
their expense, 1 have already expressed my regret, 
that my sense of duty to his memory should have 
extorted from me the particulars in question. If 
the complaining parties can produce documents 
to overthrow my statements, let them do so. But, 
even then^ I should be entitled to ask why those 
documents were kept back from me?'''' 

" Why those documents were kept back from 
him? " The answer is obvious. No man alive, 
without an appearance of intentional insult, could 
have anticipated that such " documents " would 
be required ; or that Mr. Lockhart's " sense of 
duty " to the memory of his father-in-law should 
have '' extorted" from him the particulars which 
he now admits may be overthrown. No unin- 
spired individual could have divined Mr. Lock- 
hart's intentions, so as prophetically to forestall 
his accusations, and provide beforehand the ma- 
terials necessary for a defence. Nor, if this had 
been possible, would it have been of any avail, 
either in guarding Mr. Lockhart against error, or 
in preventing his attempts to insult the memory 
of individuals for whom he had conceived an 
aversion. The circumstance which we are now 



58 



about to relate, where accurate information loas 
placed within his reach, but only disregarded, 
entitles us to say so; and we here entreat the 
attention of all who may have laid any stress on 
Mr. Lockhart's question, why " documents " were 
kept back from him. When the sixth volume of 
the Life of Scott was passing through the press, 
Mr. John Hughes, one of the trustees appointed 
by James Ballantyne, in his last will and settle- 
ment, observing the statements about bills intro- 
duced into that volume, addressed to the publisher 
of the work, Mr. Cadell, a letter, dated the 26th 
October, 1837, of which the following is a copy : — 

'' Dear Sir, 

I send you the proofs of Chapter III. I have 
not read them, but I have glanced at the last 
pages, where I find some things that surely ought 
to be brought under Mr. Lockhart s review. He 
says Sir Walter never knew the amount of ' pri- 
mary bills ' and ' counter-bills ' for which he was 
responsible as the unseen partner of the Ballan- 
tynes. Now, the fact is, that Sir Walter was 
cognizant of all these bills. Once every month, 
Mr. Ballantyne waited on Sir Walter (or if he 
was in the country he wrote to him, or went to 
Abbotsford personally) with a statement of the 
bills that fell due in the succeeding month ; and 
they conjointly settled on the means by which 
they were to be met, which uniformly were by 
bills of a certain amount, drawn on Constable 



BUT NOT ACCEPTED. 59 

and Co., and by a certain sum in Constable's 
promissory notes to Sir Walter Scott. James 
Ballantyne and Co. granted counter-bills on Con- 
stable and Co. for these bills and notes ; and of 
all these obligations Sir Walter kept a regular ac- 
count in a book of his own {a royal Svo, bound in 
red moroccM). This matter was no further under 
James Ballantyne's management than as he was 
the me7^e instrument in getting the bills discount- 
ed. The bills, also, I am in a position to show, 
were exclusively for Sir Walter^ s accommodation^ 
so that, as regards them, Mr. Ballantyne must 
have lost largely. The printing-office was thriv- 
ing, and had no need of them ; and I have not 
the slightest doubt, when the books are balanced 
up to the bankruptcy of 1825-1826, that, Mr. 
Ballantyne will be found to have been Sir Walter 
Scott's creditor to a considerable amount. 

'/ The remark about the ' sheaf of counter-bills ' 
with which, in his panic. Constable rushed to the 
' money-changers,' will be looked upon with sus- 
picion by mercantile men ; and you and I know 
that counters ivere regidarly draum for the pjima- 
ries^ the difference of interest calculated^ and the 
counters as regidarly discounted; so that any 
' sheaf in Mr. Constable's desk must have con- 
sisted of such bills as banks had refused, and of 
such as had been prevented by the failure from 
being offered. 

" I beg pardon for the length of my note. I 
meant it to be a short one, but my desire that 



60 



my late friend should not, though I believe un- 
intentionally, be placed in so erroneous a position, 
has led me to be too lengthy, perhaps, for your 
patience. 

J. H." 

The note subjoined was sent to Mr. Cadell along 
with the preceding, and emphatically evinces the 
anxiety of the writer to supply Mr. Lockhart with 
correct information. 

" Dear Sir, 

I hope you will agi'ee with me in thinking the 
enclosed should be seen by Mr. Lockhart ; or, if 
you prefer, I have a copy which I can send him. 
It is really too bad thai James Ballantyne should 
he made a scape- goat for the transactions by luhich 
he was ruined. It is notorious that these bills 
were Sir Walter^s own, and James Ballantyne 
did not know, till the catastrophe of 1825-1826, 
that Abbotsford did not stand between him and 
ruin, from the extent to which he was engaged 
for Sir Walter. 

J. H." 

Here, then, we have a letter written with the 
sole intention of supplying Mr. Lockhart, in some 
most important particulars, with the information 
which he complains was " kept back " from him ; 
and we cannot entertain a doubt that this letter 
was submitted to him, or, at least, that he was 



BUT NOT ACCEPTED. 61 

made aware of the information it contained. This 
excuse, therefore, will not avail him ; these state- 
ments were amply sufficient to set him right in 
many instances where he has gone widely and 
absurdly astray ; and it follows that he must 
have wilfully adhered to his own distorted views 
of " the character and conduct " of Mr. Ballan- 
tyne, or at least neglected to avail himself of the 
proffered information necessary to place both in a 
just and true light before the world. 

Mr. Lockhart says boldly, " If the complaining 
parties can produce documents to overthrow my 
statements, let them do so." Does this imply, on 
Mr. Lockhart' s part, a feeling of security, arising 
from a secret belief that the complaining parties 
cannot produce documents to overthrow his state- 
ments, from not having access to any such ? If 
so, we think we have undeceived him. Accord- 
ing to the most elementary notions of justice, no 
accused person can ever be called upon to prove 
a negative in his defence. Among all civilised 
nations the iniquity of such a demand has ever 
been proclaimed and denounced. But integrity 
and truth, however assailed, are seldom left alto- 
gether defenceless. There is a special Providence 
that keeps watch over both, and always, sooner 
or later, provides the means of triumphant vindi- 
cation. This, however, Mr. Lockhart has tried 
to render as difficult as possible. " If the com- 
plaining parties," says he, " can produce docu- 
ments to overthrow my statements^ let them do 



62 TRANSFER OF ABBOTSFORD. 

SO." We admire the modesty displayed in the 
condition here prescribed. We confess, we did 
not know before that Mr. Lockhart's " state- 
ments " were so weighty and authoritative as to 
require nothing short of " documents " to over- 
throw them. As this, however, appears to be his 
own opinion, it is a matter of satisfaction to us 
that we are in a condition to gratify him ; and we 
shaU be glad to find that Mr. Lockhart, in any 
future edition of his work, has sufficient candor 
to avail himself of the " documents " which, now 
at least, he cannot say are "kept back" from 
him. 

We have already seen that in James Ballan- 
tyne's estimate of means for meeting his liabili- 
ties on account of Sir Walter Scott, Abbotsford 
was always included — (" then add Abbotsford, 
so there is the head for the washing ") — and 
we further learn, from Mr. Hughes's note to Mr. 
Cadell, accompanying the letter intended for Mr. 
Lockhart's view, that Mr. Ballantyne did not 
knoW; till the catastrophe of 1826, that Abbots- 
ford did not stand between him and ruin, although 
Sir Walter had divested himself of his estate a 
year before. Let us now hear Mr. Lockhart upon 
that subject, more particularly as the "counter- 
bills " are again introduced in connexion with 
another of those theories in which he is so rife. 
No wonder he sticks to his own notion of these 
bills ; it keeps him out of every dilemma, resolves 
every doubt, and smooths every difficulty. 



MR. lockhart's observations thereon. 63 

'' The firm of James Ballantyne and Co.," says 
he, " might have allowed itself to be declared 
bankrupt, and obtained a speedy discharge, as 
the bookselling concern did for all its obligations, 
but that Sir Walter Scott was a partner. Had 
he chosen to act in a manner commonly adopted 
by commercial men [which usually means giving 
up the whole of one's property to one's creditors], 
the matter would have been settled in a very 
short time. The creditors of James Ballantyne 
and Co., whose claims, including sheafs of bills 
of all description, amounted to £117,000, would 
have brought into the market whatever property>^ 
literary or otherwise^ he at the hour of failure pos- 
sessed ; they would have had a right to his life- 
rent of Abbotsford, amoiig other things, and to 
his reversionary interest in the estate, in case 
either his eldest son or his daughter-in-law should 
die without leaving issue, and thus void the pro- 
visions of their marriage-contract. All this being 
brought into the market, the result would have 
been a dividend very far superior to what the 
creditors of Constable and Hurst received ; and in 
return, the partners in the printing firm would 
have been left at liberty to reap for themselves 
the profits of their future exertions. Things were, 
however, complicated^ in consequence of the trans- 
fer of Abbotsford in January, 1825. At first some 
creditors seem to have had serious thoughts of 
contesting the validity of the transaction, but a 
little reflection and examination satisfied them 



64 THESE OBSERVATIONS SHOWN 

that nothing could be gained by such an attempt. 
But, on the other hand, Sir Walter Scott felt he 
had done wrong in placing' any part of his pro- 
perty beyond the reach of his creditors, by entering 
into that marriage-contract, without a previous 
most dehberate examination into the state of his- 
responsibihties. He must have felt in this man- 
ner, though I have no sort of doubt that the result 
of such an examination in January, 1825, if ac- 
companied by an instant calling in of all the 
' counter-bills,' would have been to leave him at 
perfect liberty to do all that he did upon that 
occasion." {Life, vol. vi. pp. 223, 224.) 

That Sir Walter Scott's feelings in regard to 
this matter were such as Mr. Lockhart has de- 
scribed we can most readily believe ; indeed, he 
must have felt in this manner, for there could 
not be two opinions on the subject. But it would 
be obliging if Mr. Lockhart would take some op- 
portunity of explaining upo7i lohat grounds he has 
come to the conclusion that the result of an ex- 
amination by Scott into the state of his responsi- 
bilities in January, 1825, "if accompanied by an 
instant calling in of all the counter-hills, would 
have been to leave him at perfect liberty to do all 
that he did upon that occasion : " — namely, to di- 
vest himself of the fee-simple of his property, and 
thus place it beyond the reach of his creditors. 
In the first place, no such examination was made 
by Sir Walter previously to the execution of his 
son's marriage-contract; and, therefore, Mr. Lock- 



TO BE FULL OF BLUNDERS. 65 

hart is here proceeding upon a mere hypothesis 
of his own. Secondly, we are prepared to show 
that, if such an examination had actually been 
made, the result would have been the opposite of 
that which Mr. Lockhart affirms would have fol- 
lowed; in fact, that Sir Walter would ?20^ have 
found himself " at perfect liberty to do all that he 
did upon that occasion." Thirdly, an instant 
calling in of all the counter-bills could only have 
been effected by taking them out of the banker's 
hands— that is, by pmjing them; an operation 
quite as impracticable in January, 1825, as it was 
found to be in January, 1826, and therefore not 
much calculated to reinforce the examination 
which Mr. Lockhart has supposed. 

The truth is, as our readers are already aware, 
that, on the subject of these "counter-bills," Mr. 
Lockhart labors under some strange hallucination, 
of which, had he consulted any man of business 
on the matter, he would have been instantly dis- 
abused. He seems to be in total ignorance of the 
fact, formerly explained, that these counter-bills 
were as regularly discounted as the primary ones ; 
that, after the dates at which they were drawn 
had expired, they were of no use whatever ; and 
that they were then literally barren " sheafs," 
wholly inapphcable to the purposes which he has 
imagined. What, then, does he mean by an in- 
stant " calling in of all the counter-bills 7" To us 
these are words without meaning, except in the 
sense we have stated; namely, retiring them, not 



66 THESE OBSERVATIONS SHOWN 

by the fabrication of new bills, but by actual bona 
fide payment. 

Mr. Lockhart proceeds thus : — '' However that 
may have been, and whatever may have been his 
(Sc6tt's) delicacy respecting this point, he re- 
garded the embarrassment of his commercial firm, 
on the whole, with the feelings, not of a merchant, 
but of a gentleman. He thought that, by devot- 
ing the rest of his life to the service of his credit- 
ors, he could, in the upshot, pay the last farthing 
he owed them. They (with one or two paltry 
exceptions) applauded his honorable intentions 
and resolutions, and partook to a large extent in 
the self-reliance of their debtor." 

Be it so. We are far from entertaining any 
disposition to impeach or even to weaken the force 
of this statement ; and Ave unite with all in admi- 
ration of the prodigious, the truly glorious effort 
which Sir Walter Scott made for his extrication, 
and in which, to the lasting wonder of the world, 
he nearly succeeded before death put a period to 
his unprecedented and exhausting labors. But it 
must, nevertheless, be kept steadily in view, that 
the main question as to the propriety or impropri- 
ety of '* placing any part of his property beyond 
the reach of his creditors," by the contract of Jan- 
uary, 1825, " without a previous most deliberate 
examination into the state of his responsibilities," 
still remains in statu quo ante ; — that what Mr. 
Lockhart says about " an instant calling in of all 
the counter-bills" is absurd; — -that James Ballan- 



TO BE FULL OF BLUNDERS. 67 

tyne all along considered Abbotsford as standing 
between him and ruin, from the extent to which 
his name was engaged for Sir Walter ; — and that 
the catastrophe of January, 1826, first revealed to 
him the astonishing fact, that, a year before, the 
foundation upon which he built all his hopes of 
safety had been destroyed by the deliberate act of 
his friend and partner. In these circumstances, 
which we deem it sufficient merely to bring under 
the notice of the reader, with a view to a right 
understanding of the questions here discussed, we 
may perhaps be permitted to say, that it would 
have been better for all parties, and decidedly for- 
tunate for Mr. Ballantyne, if Sir Walter Scott, 
waving all unnecessary delicacy, had "regarded 
the embarrassment of his commercial firm" with 
'' the feelings of a merchant," at least equally as 
with those " of a gentleman ;" for, in passing, we 
would assure Mr. Lockhart that, in spite of his 
apparent doubts on the subject, they are not 
wholly incompatible. 

We have already had occasion to notice Mr. 
Lockhart' s extraordinary statement, that Sir Wal- 
ter never drew any thing from the printing-house 
business. A bolder assertion as to matter of fact 
was never, perhaps, adventured by any man 
writing for the public ; but the imprudence which 
it seems to betray we ascribe to ignorance, rather 
than to any desire to impose upon or mislead the 
world. Sir Walter drew from the business large- 
ly, as we have already seen, and are still further 



68 FICTIONS AND FACTS AS TO THE PRINTING FIRM. 

to see, presently. At the date of the formation of 
the new copartnership in 1822, the concern, as 
formerly stated, was engaged to a large amount 
on account of Sir Walter Scott. The bills current 
at that time for his accommodation, and for which 
the firm, of course, was responsible, amounted to 
£26,896, 5s. lid. This large sum, so far from 
being reduced, was annually augmented, as we 
have before explained, by the amount of stamps 
and discounts, at least £2000 ; and in less 
than four years thereafter Sir Walter received 
from the company, in promissory notes, for his 
own personal use, his son's commission, and 
builders' bills, about £14,000. If it be said that 
this was not drawing from the business, we meet 
the denial by asserting, what we shall immedi- 
ately prove, that, excepting Mr. Ballantyne's 
family expenses, Sir Walter Scott, — or, which 
comes to the same thing ultimately, his creditors, 
— got the whole profits realized by the company, 
besides the profits accruing to Mr. Ballantyne as 
proprietor of a one-sixth share of the new novels, 
which was also floating in the business for Sir 
Walter's accommodation; and, furthermore, all 
the real and personal property belonging to Mr. 
Ballantyne as an individual. This is amply 
proved by the following extracts from the Trust 
Accounts, to which Mr. Lockhart, of course, had 
ready access ; but which tell a very diflerent tale 
from that with which he has sought to entertain 
his readers. 



EXTRACTS FROM THE TRUST ACCOUNTS. 69 

I. Extracts from Mr. Gibson's Trust Accounts, 
from the 1 9th January, 1826, to 15th May, 
1827, in as far as regards funds reahzed to 
James Ballantyne and Co., and to Mr. Ballan- 
tyne as an individual. 

1. Cash in the printing-office at the commence- 
ment of the trust, £485 13 9i 

2. Sums received from sundries in payment of 

accounts for printing, .... 283C 5 8 

3. Proceeds of the price of a house in Heriot 
Row, belonging to Mr. Ballantyne, after de- 
ducting a debt of £1000 thereon, . . 1700 

4. Proceeds of sale of policies of insurance on 

Mr. Ballantyne's life, . . . . 185 10 



Credited in first account, independently of the 
proceeds of shares of the Weekly Journal, be- 
longing jointly to Sir Walter Scott and Mr. 
Ballantyne, £5207 9 5^ 



II. Extracts from Mr. Gibson's Trust Accounts, 
from the 15th May, 1827, to the 15th May, 1828. 

1. Sums recovered from sundries in payment 

of accounts for printing, . . £3463 2 10 

2. Balance in the hands of the printing-office 
book-keepers^ paid over by them, . 5 15 10 

3. Proceeds of printing materials sold, 1439 16 6* 



£4908 15 2t 



* Part only was recovered this year ; but the whole sum 
was afterwards realized. 

t This is also independent of the price of five-eighths of 
the Weekly Journal, upwards of £2000, which belonged to 
Sir Walter Scott and Mr. Ballantyne, in the relative proper- 



70 EXTRACTS FROM THE TRUST ACCOUNTS. 

III. Extracts from Mr. Gibson's Trust Accounts, 
from the 15th May, 1828, to the 15th May, 1829. 

1. Sums received for printing accounts, £1294 4 3 

IV. In the Account from Whitsunday 1829, to 

Whitsunday 1830, there is credited, 

1. Price of printing-office buildings, . . £1200 

2. Sums received for printing accounts, . , 95 4 

3. Ditto for paper retained in the printing-office 20 

£1315 4 

There is thus credited in whole, as recovered from 
James Ballantyne and Co., and from Mr. James 
Ballantyne's individual estate : — 

1st Account, £5207 9 5^ 

2d Account, 4908 15 2 

3d Account, 1294 4 3 

4th Account, 1315 4 

Total, independently of the property of the 

Weekly Journal, .... £12,725 12 lOj^ 

Disbursements during the preceding period. 

1. Accounts from 19th January, 1826, to 15th 

May, 1827, ^£5552 12 iq 

2. Ditto from 15th May, 1827, to 15th May, 1828, 487 17 2 

3. Ditto from 15th May, 1828, to 15th May, 1829, 122 2 9 

Total payments, .... £6102 12 9 



tion of Sir Walter two-eighths and Mr. Ballantyne three- 
eighths. 



REMARKS THEREON. 71 



ABSTRACT. 

Amount of receipts, .... £12,725 12 10^ 

Amount of payments, . . . . 6162 12 9 



Balance of proceeds . . . £6563 IJ 

This balance, be it observed, is independent of 
the Weekly Journal newspaper, Mr. Ballantyne's 
interest in which reahzed fully £1400 ; his house 
in Ann Street, which brought £800; and a con- 
siderable claim against Constable and Co., for 
which James Ballantyne and Co. held in hypo- 
thec various printed works, which were made 
over to Sir Walter Scott's representatives, when a 
mutual release, which will afterwards be adverted 
to,. was executed. It is evident, then, that for 
behoof of Sir Walter Scott's creditors, Mr. James 
Ballantyne contributed upwards of £8000, inde- 
pendently of his share of business profits from 
Whitsunday, 1822, till January, 1826, and his pro- 
portion of the profits on the noA^els, mimis the 
amount of his family expenses for the same period, 
which last scarcely exceeded the half of his income. 
Yet Mr. Lockhart, with all this evidence before 
him, or at least within his reach, has, in every 
possible way, insinuated, and even directly af- 
firmed, that Sir Walter Scott was ''^deeply injur- 
ec?" by " the Ballantynes," endeavoring, and to a 
certain extent successfully, to impress the public 
with a conviction that Sir Walter's overthrow 
was mainly attributable to the neglect and mis- 



72 REMARKS THEREON. 

management of Mr. James Ballantyne, who, as 
we have just seen, was stripped of his all for 
behoof of Sir Walter's own creditors.=^ But, 
although the public, having nothing but Mr. Lock- 
hart's partial representations before them, might 
for a time be deceived, or at any rate induced to 
suppose that there must surely have been some- 
thing wrong; yet, now that the defence of the 
other party has been put on record, and docu- 
ments have been produced in support of it, we 
have little doubt that they will reconsider their 
original erroneous impressions, and pronounce a 
verdict honorably acquitting the memory of Mr. 
Ballantyne. If such be their final judgment, 
however, how will it stand with Mr. Lockhart ? 
We confess that we do not by any means regard 
his position as one of a very enviable kind. He 
is bound to make good his charge if he can — or, 
in the event of failure, to confess that he has 
unjustly and cruelly aspersed the name of one to 
whom he had addressed the language of friend- 
ship, and at whose hospitable board he had often 
taken a place, seemingly with pleasure, assuredly 
with a friendly welcome. 

Having discussed these various matters in suffi- 
cient detail, and refuted the injurious imputations 
contained in the Life, wherever the author ven- 
tures to make specific statements, we shall now, 

* At the time of the bankruptcy, the debts due by James 
Ballantyne and Co., as printers, did not amount to £1000 ; 
and James Ballantyne's personal debts were under £100. 



73 



in order to bring the whole matter into one view, 
introduce a General Abstract of Sir Walter Scott's 
Accounts ; showing clearly that he did derive 
advantage from his connexion with James Ballan- 
tyne, and also exhibiting the gross amount of his 
liabilities proper^ and in consequence of the bank- 
ruptcy. 

SIR WALTER SCOTT'S ACCOUNTS. 

Note in regard to the bills which, in any account- 
ing between him and James Ballantyne, Sir 
Walter Scott would have had to provide for, 
had there been merely a dissolution of copart- 
nership, and not a bankruptcy. 

1. According to the balance-sheet made up by a 
man of business, mutually chosen by the part- 
ners, on 31st December, 1822, and exhibited to 
Sir Walter Scott on the 17th April, 1823, the 
bills payable then current, and to be provided 

for by Sir Walter Scott, amounted to £36,007 5 5 

But he, under an arrangement, was entitled to 
bills receivable, and other Company funds, 
amounting to 9,110 19 6 

Which still left, at December, 1822, to be provi- 
ded for by Sir Walter, .... £26,896 5 11 

2. At the time of the bankruptcy, the bills to be 
provided for by Sir Walter Scott had increased 
from £26,896, 5s. lid. (their amount in De- 
cember, 1822, after deducting the £9110, 19s. 
6d., for which Sir Walter was allowed credit), 
to £46,564, 10s. 5d , composed as under : — 

James Ballantyne and Co.'s ac- 
ceptances to Constable and Co. — — 

on account of Sir Walter, £29,624 17 3 £26,896 5 11 



74 SIR WALTER SCOTT's ACCOUNTS. 

Brought forward £29,624 17 3 26,896 5 11 

Sir Walter's acceptances to James 
Ballantyne and Co., also for 
his own behoof, . . 16,272 19 10 

James Ballantyne and Co.'s ac- 
ceptance to Hurst, Robinson, 
and Co., for ditto, . . 666 13 4 



Total amount of Sir Walter's proper liabilities, £46,564 10 5 



Increase since December, 1822, . . £19,668 4 6 



3. This increase is more than accounted for, when 
we take into consideration the large sum paid 
in shape of discounts, which amounted to £5,876 8 

Sum paid as exchange on remittances to London, 

to retire bills due there, per account, No. II., 901 11 4 

Sum paid for bill-stamps, for Sir Walter's accom- 
modation-bills, per ditto, .... 251 13 6 

Interest on advances by bankers, per ditto, . 815 17 7 

Commission and postages to London bankers, 

per ditto, 240 



Total expense of discounts, stamps, &c. . 8,085 3 1 

Add excess of payments, for Sir Walter, over 

sums received from him, as per account No. III., 17,142 18 10 



Giving a total of £25,228 111 

This difference shows clearly that Sir Walter 
did derive advantage from his connexion with 
James Ballantyne. 
4. Sir Walter Scott's liabilities are stated above at £46,564 10 5 
But in consequence of Constable and Co.'s bank- 
ruptcy, their acceptances also fell to be pro- 
vided for by him, amounting to (the accom- 
modation-bills) £29,094, 15s. lOd. ; bills for 
his copies of Crusaders, £1890 ; bills for 
James Ballantyne's ditto, £1890 ; and busi- 
ness bills (the whole property of the Compa- 
ny having been made over to his creditors,) 
£3604, 17s. 8d 36,479 13 6 



£83,044 3 11 



RESULTS AND OBSERVATIONS. 75 

Brought forward 83,044 3 11 
Hurst, Robinson, and Co.'s acceptances for cash 

advanced to them, 5,563 15 10 



Gross amount of Sir Walter's habiUties, proper, 
and in consequence of the bankruptcy, . £88,607 19 9 



This Abstract is made up from detailed ac- 
counts, which have been most carefully prepar- 
ed ; and its general accuracy may, therefore, be 
relied on. It brings the whole of these matters, 
as it were, into a focus ; showing at one view 
the result of the system acted upon by Sir Wal- 
ter Scott to raise money for his own purposes, — 
the liabilities which he consequently incurred, — 
and the positive pecuniary advantages which he 
derived from his connexion with James Ballan- 
tyne. In fact, his large wants swallowed up every 
thing. The ordinary profits of the business, 
though considerable, were very far indeed from 
sufficing for his demands. He employed it as an 
instrument for raising and keeping afloat as long 
as possible the enormous sums above specified ; 
and when the machinery would no longer work, 
and the day of reckoning arrived, it was found 
that the estate purchased with the funds thus 
raised had been placed beyond the reach of cred- 
itors. Mr. Ballantyne's all was swept into the 
vortex of bankruptcy, and, by the acts of another, 
his friend and partner, he became " a broken 
man." But he lived to repair his ruined fortune, 
and thereby to prove to the world that the busi- 
ness, if left to itself, would have been lucrative 



76 NEW CONTRACT OF COPARTNERSHIP. 

and prosperous ; and that, under his sole man- 
agementj it proved a thriving concern. 

If any additional proof were wanting to estab- 
Hsh the accuracy of the view we have here taken, 
and to show that the heavy responsibihties which 
James Ballantyne and Co. had incurred were 
exchisively for the accommodation of Sir WaUer 
Scott, this would be supplied by the new contract 
of copartnery, dated on the 1st April, 1822. In 
that deed, which was to become effectual at 
Whitsunday, 1822, it is expressly provided, in 
reference to the mutual obligations of the parties 
towards each other, that, when the new copart- 
nership shall commence, as after specified, " the 
said Sir Walter Scott shall remain j^ersonally lia- 
ble for such bills and debts as shall then be due and 
current^ excepting always such bills, if any, as 
shall have been granted for additions to the stock 
of the Company, if any," &c. At the date of 
this transaction, the bills and debts for which 
Sir Walter here made himself personally liable 
amounted nearly to £30,000 ; and at the period 
of the bankruptcy, in January, 1826, they had 
increased to upwards of £46,000. As to the 
former sum, then, there can be no doubt what- 
ever, because the contract expressly refers to and 
proceeds on the document in which it is ascer- 
tained ; and the stipulations above quoted are 
perfectly unequivocal. But the addition which 
was made to these "bills and debts" between 
the date of the contract and that of the bank- 



INFERENCES DEDUCED FROM IT. 77 

ruptcy is in precisely the same situation as the 
ascertained amount of Sir Waher's Uabilities at 
the former period ; and, therefore, if Sir WaUer 
was " personally liable " for the one, he must, by 
parity of reason, have been equally liable for the 
other. This, we think, is a conclusion which 
cannot be shaken. At all events, Sir Walter 
Scott's liability to the extent specified in the deed 
is most fully and amply recognised under his own 
signature. 

It does seem to us, therefore, to require some- 
thing more than rashness or imprudence to 
affirm that Sir Walter never drew from the busi- 
ness, — that he derived no positive advantage from 
his connexion with James Ballantyne, — that he 
was deeply injured by it, — and that Mr. Ballan- 
tyne' s alleged mismanagement was the main 
cause of his misfortunes. Indeed, Sir Walter 
Scott himself, in one form or another, contradicts 
his biographer on every point except the mere 
ribaldry and abuse in which the latter has so 
freely indulged ; and, in regard to Mr. Ballan- 
tyne' s capacity for, as well as success in conduct- 
ing the business, when left unfettered and untram- 
melled, we submit to our readers evidence which 
will probably have more weight in their estima- 
tion than Mr. Lockhart's unsupported and preju- 
diced statements. 

We have now before us a document holograph 
of Mr. Ballantyne himself, in which this is clearly 
demonstrated. It is dated February 18, 1826, and 



78 MR. JAMES BALLANTYNe's 

entitled, " Statement of the probable situation in 
which James Ballantyne would be placed should 
a sequestration take place in the affairs of James 
Ballantyne and Co., printers in Edinburgh ; " 
and, by a very clear and distinct process of cal- 
culation, it shows, from data unquestionable, 
none of them hypothetical, that the business, con- 
ducted by himself alone, would realize a net 
annual profit of £1777, 10s., or nearly £1800 a- 
year. It is unnecessary to specify the details of 
the calculation from which this result is deduced; 
but it may be interesting to subjoin the observa- 
tions which Mr. Ballantyne himself annexed to 
his " Statement." 

" 1 have thus shown," says he, '' by a process 
of calculation which I am Avilling should be sub- 
jected to the most rigorous examination, that, in 
the event of a sequestration taking place, my 
profits, then entirely my own,^ would amount to 
nearly £1800 a-year ; diminished by the interest 
of the price of my share of the Journal^ and of 
my necessary expenditure for types and presses, 
and other printing materials, which would not 
exceed £120 a-year, leaving a gross (clear) profit 
of £1600 per annum. It is clear, therefore, that 
a sequestration would, for me, be by far the most 
desirable step that could be taken. A compara- 
tively brief period would disenthral me from the 
painful bonds of dependence, and, as I trust, with 

* The printing-office, materials, &c. being repurchased 
on Mr. Ballantyne's own account. 



THIS "statement" CONTINUED. 79 

a character not injured by any investigation lohich 
might take place. This would be the chief part 
of the advantages I should anticipate from the 
measure ; but it is also a very important consid- 
eration, that it holds out to me the additional 
benefit of a most respectable income, from which 
I should derive the means of future and not very 
distant competence. The term (sequestration) is 
a harsh one, no doubt ; and the measure itself 
would be accompanied by many painful feelings, 
— but independence and quiet security would 
accrue to me from its adoption, unaccompanied, 
as I trust, by any, even the smallest portion of 
disgrace or discredit. 

''I do not, however, desire, or even wish, for 
a sequestration ; because there are motives more 
powerful still than those which I have stated in 
its favor, which would render it nearly the bit- 
terest potion I could swallow. But I owe a great 
duty, and which must be obeyed as the most pa- 
ramount of all duties, to my family. They have 
been reduced, by no partictdar error of my own, 
from affluence to beggary ; have been turned out 
of their habitation, and have no other barrier than 
my precarious life and health, betwixt their pre- 
sent dependent state and the still worse misery of 
total destitution. My death would leave them 
without a home and without a meal. It is not 
for a husband and a father to contemplate this, 
without feeling that all other considerations must 
hold only a second place in his mind. I am will- 



80 THIS " STATEMENT " CONTINUED. 

ing to postpone my prospects of freedom, and to 
forego my well-founded expectations of affluence. 
But I must not be driven, during an indefinite 
period of years, out of my station in society. I 
must not see my wife and children degraded to 
sordidness of food, habitation, and raiment. I 
must not see the education of my children stinted, 
nor their young hearts chilled by privation and 
penury. In a word, I must not be lowered, for 
possibly the remainder of my life, to the rank of 
a mere overseer. This, I think, I can prevent, 
and this, therefore, I must prevent. There is no 
man, who considers my situation, who will not 
appreciate the motives that lead me to this deter- 
mination ; and I should think there are very few 
who will not sympathize with, and approve of 
them. But, at all events, I must be myself the 
sole ultimate judge of the conduct to which I shall 
be led by my own sense of duty. 

'' I have formerly stated to Mr. Gibson, through 
Mr. Cowan, what I respectfully think my services 
are worth, should the affairs bearing my name be 
wound up under a trust-deed ; and I have now, 
as I conceive, shown that, according to a reason- 
able calculation, I could more than double its 
amount, in the event of a sequestration. I have 
nothing further to submit, save my request, that 
my claims may be dispassionately considered, as 
I have no reason to doubt they will be, and as 
early a decision come to upon them as is consist- 
ent with the convenience of the respectable trus- 
tees." 



REMARKS ON THIS DOCUMENT. ' 81 

There are but few, we think, who could read 
this manly and touching exposition without being 
moved by it. It breathes the language of an 
honorable man, sustained in adversity by the 
consciousness of unimpeachable integrity, and 
actuated by a spirit of independence, and a purity 
of feeling, which it is impossible not to respect. 
But it is not for the purpose of displaying the 
praiseworthy qualities of James Ballantyne's 
mind that we have here introduced it. We have 
laid it before our readers, partly to give them a 
just idea of the nature of the business out of 
which, Mr. Lockhart says. Sir Walter Scott drew 
nothing, whilst Ballantyne was involved in ruin 
and reduced to beggary ; and partly, also, to fur- 
nish them with another proof of the incorrectness 
of this assertion, by showing how far the calcula- 
tions here made were verified in the sequel. 

The sequestration above contemplated was not 
judged advisable, and the affairs of James Ballan- 
tyne and Co. were Avound up under a trust. Mr. 
Ballantyne made an entire surrender of his pro- 
perty to the creditors of the Company, or rather 
to those of Sir Walter Scott ; all he had in the 
world passed into their hands ; and, after so many 
years of labor, and toil, and anxiety, he had to 
begin life a second time, with diminished energies 
and clouded prospects. But his honorable con- 
duct, acknowledged probity, and virtuous princi- 
ples, had secured to him friends, who now, in his 
day of difficulty, came voluntarily forward to 



82 REMARKS ON THIS DOCUMENT. 

help him. The printing-house and the materials 
were sold by the trustees to Mr. Cowan, who 
purchased them on account of Mr. Ballantyne; 
and from and after May, 1827, the business was 
carried on for his own behoof, though, as must 
be obvious from the circumstances in which he 
was placed, under considerable disadvantages. 
Yet, in spite of every drawback, the result was 
such as at once to disprove all that is said by Mr. 
Lockhart as to his alleged incapacity for manag- 
ing such a concern, and to afford some idea of 
the extent to which Sir Walter Scott must have 
profited by his connexion Avith Mr. Ballantyne 
anterior to the catastrophe of 1826. At the period 
of his death, in the beginning of 1833, the latter 
had not only cleared off all incumbrances, but 
had realized a considerable amount of property 
over and above. 

This simple fact shows, in the first place, the 
utter improbability of all Mr. Lockhart' s unsup- 
ported statements and insinuations about mis- 
management and negligence on the part of Mr. 
Ballantyne; and, secondly, it places beyond all 
doubt the important fact, that, if Sir Walter Scott's 
representatives had had any claim against Mr. 
Ballantyne' s estate, there were funds to meet it. 
But they had none^ and they pretended none ; as 
we shall prove on the authority, i7iter alios, of 
Mr. Lockhart himself. 

Soon after Sir Walter Scott's death, and when 
a settlement of the trust affairs had been effected, 



MUTUAL DISCHARGE PROPOSED. 83 

under a deed of assignment executed by him and 
James Ballantyne and Co., application was made 
to Mr. Ballantyne to concur with Sir Walter's 
representatives in granting a discharge, or release, 
to the trustees under the assignment ; and it was 
also proposed that this should be accompanied 
with a mutual discharge between Sir Walter's 
representatives and Mr. Ballantyne. The latter 
was then upon his death-bed ; and in a personal 
interview which his friend Mr. Alexander Doug- 
las had with him on the subject, he stated, in 
feeling language, that he had experienced much 
kindness and friendship on the part of Sir Walter 
Scott, and that, whatever might be the state of 
accounts between them, he wished every trans- 
action which had taken place between them, 
prior to their misfortunes, to be considered as set- 
tled ; and that he should offer no opposition to 
the arrangement of all claims against Sir Walter 
Scott, which his representatives were desirous of 
carrying into effect. But Mr. Ballantyne died 
before this mutual release could be executed or 
even prepared. 

After his death, application was made to his 
trustees and executors to carry through this ar- 
rangement ; and, upon a statement by Mr. Doug- 
las of the conference which he had had with Mr. 
Ballantyne on the subject, and which was corro- 
borated by the late Mr. John Patterson, brother- 
in-law of the deceased, the trustees at once agreed 
to meet the views of Sir Walter Scott's represent- 



84 ITS HISTORY AND COMPLETION. 

atives. They accordingly joined with these rep- 
resentatives in a discharge, or release, to Messrs. 
Gibson, JolUe, and Monypenny, the trustees under 
the deed of assignment which had been executed 
for behoof of Sir Walter's creditors. At the same 
time, there was executed a mutual discharge or 
release between Sir Walter Scott's testamentary 
trustees, and Mr. Ballantyne's trustees and exec- 
utors. This deed, which now lies before us, is 
executed on the one hand by the present Sir 
Walter Scott, Baronet, his. brother Mr. Charles 
Scott, and by Mr. John Gibson Liockhart^ the 
trustees of the late Sir Walter Scott; and upon 
the other, by Mr. Alexander Ballantyne, the late 
Mr. Patterson, Mr. Alexander Douglas, and Mr. 
John Hughes, as four and a quorum of the trus- 
tees and executors of Mr. James Ballantyne. It 
proceeds on the narrative of the deed of assign- 
ment which had been executed for behoof of the 
creditors, the discharge of these creditors, and 
lastly, the discharge which Sir W^alter Scott's 
representatives, and Mr. Ballantyne's trustees and 
executors, had executed in favor of the trustees 
under the deed of assignment ; and then it sub- 
sumes as follows : — 

" And, further, considering that the whole debts 
and obligations of the said James Ballantyne and 
Company, and of the said deceased Sir Walter 
Scott, Baronet, and of the said James Ballantyne, 
at and precedmg the 24th February, 1826, the 
date of the foresaid trust-disposition, having now 



NARRATIVE AND SUBSUMPTIONS OF THIS DEED. 85 

been settled and discharged by the creditors of 
the said Company and individual partners, it is 
right and proper, to prevent all after-disputes and 
differences, that a settlement should also take place 
betv^eeii the representatives of the said individual 
partners : And, seeing that the said Sir Walter 
Scott, now of Abbotsford, Baronet, John Gibson 
Lockhartj and Charles Scott, as testamentary 
trustees of the said deceased Sir Walter Scott, 
Baronet; — and the said Alexander Ballantyne, 
David Hogarth, John Patterson, David Walker, 
Robert Hogarth, John Hughes, and Alexander 
Douglas, as trustees of the said deceased James 
Ballantyne ; — have reason to believe, and are 
therefore satisfied, that the estates, heritable and 
movable, of the said James Ballantyne and 
Company, of the said deceased Sir Walter Scott, 
Baronet, and James Ballantyne, made over to the 
foresaid trustees, for behoof of their creditors, and 
funds subsequently made available to said credi- 
tors, were so made over, realized, and subse- 
quently made available, in fair proportion, to the 
respective debts and obligations of said Company, 
and of the said deceased Sir Walter Scott and 
James Ballantyne, at the date of said trust ; and 
that the heirs and representatives of the said de- 
ceased Sir Walter Scott, Baronet, on the one hand, 
have no claim of relief for 'payment of any of said 
debts against the representatives of the said de- 
ceased James BaUanty7ie, or property or effects 
left by him ; and that the heirs and representatives 



86 EFFECTS OF THE MUTUAL RELEASE: 

of the said James Ballantyne, on the other hand, 
have no claim of rehef against the heirs and rep- 
resentatives of the said deceased Sir WaUer Scott, 
Baronet, or property or effects left by him, or re- 
maining trust-property, made over as aforesaid to 
the testamentary trustees of the said deceased Sir 
Walter Scott, Baronet : Therefore the said par- 
ties hereto, as trustees foresaid, do hereby mutu- 
ally exoner, acquit, and simjiliciter discharge each 
other," &c.^ 

The document from which the above extract 
has been made, is, of itself, independently of all 
the other evidence we have produced, conclusive 
as to the utter groundlessness of what has so fre- 
quently been said or insinuated, in the Life of Sir 
Walter Scott, respecting the alleged pecuniary 
'^ injury " which Scott is alleged to have sustained 
in consequence of his connexion with Mr. James 
Ballantyne ; and it is certainly very satisfactory 
to find the accuser himself a party to such a deed ; 
embodying, as it does, a formal contradiction of 
all that he has since promulgated to the dispar- 
agement of Mr. Ballantyne. The case, therefore, 
may now be brought within a very narrow com- 
pass. We are not aware that the representatives 
of Sir Walter Scott would have felt disposed to 
abandon claims which were capable of being 

* This deed of mutual release is recorded in the Books of 
Council and Session, under date the 5th of March, 1834. It 
was prepared by Mr. Isaac Bayley, the professional agent of 
the present Sir Walter Scott. 



THE PRINTING ESTABLISHMENT. 87 

maintained, merely out of delicacy to particular 
individuals ; and as to one of their number, Mr. 
Lockhart, he is wholly free from any imputation 
of having shown either respect for the feelings or 
consideration for the interests of the representa- 
tives and children of Mr. James Ballantyne, the 
intimate and confidential friend of Sir Walter 
Scott. But it has already been stated, and was 
well known to Mr. Lockhart, that Mr. Ballantyne 
had left property, realized subsequently to the 
insolvency of 1826. If, therefore, he had con- 
ceived that Sir Walter Scott's estate was likely to. 
be benefited by going into a count and reckoning 
with that of Mr. Ballantyne, we do not consider 
it as any want of liberality to maintain, — and we 
have no doubt we shall be generally borne out in 
the opinion, — that Mr. Lockhart is the very last 
man who would have been a party to the mutual 
discharge or release to which his signature is 
affixed. On the contrary, if a proper accounting 
had been gone into between Sir Walter Scott's 
representatives and those of Mr. James Ballan- 
tyne, the latter, as we have alr'eady had occasion 
to show, would have been able to establish a very 
considerable claim against the former ; and of this 
Mr. Lockhart could scarcely fail to be aware. 

The facts, we think, speak for themselves. 
That the printing establishment was a most pro- 
fitable concern, had been placed beyond all doubt 
by the profits realized from it since Sir Walter 
Scott's insolvency, in 1826, and the property 



88 



which Mr. Ballantyne acquired in the interval 
between that period and the time of his death. 
May it not, therefore, be fairly and legitimately 
inferred, that if Mr. Ballantyne had previously 
carried on the business upon his own account, 
without having had Scott as a partner, and had 
come under no engagemeyits for Sir JValter, he 
would have realized proportional profits, and thus 
left a large fortune to his family 7 This conclu- 
sion appears to us to be a legitimate one. The 
business before the bankruptcy was not less, but 
greater than after it. What, then, became of the 
profits, unless they were all absorbed by Scott, 
minus only the expenses of Mr. Ballantyne's 
fam'ily % James Ballantyne was ruined, and left 
penniless. Sir Walter Scott, or, which comes to 
the same thing, his creditors, must, therefore, have 
got all. How this was effected, we have already 
explained pretty fully. In purchases of land, 
made contrary to every rule of prudence ; in 
buildings, plantings, and improvements, carried 
on with a total disregard of expense ; and in the 
gratification of a -taste for splendid hospitality, 
and articles of vertu^ habitually indulged, — were 
employed the immense sums raised by means of 
discounts obtained at the different banks, which 
deprived Mr. Ballantyne of all hope of escape, 
and in the end brought about his ruin. 

Mr. Lockhart's repeated allusions to Mr. Bal- 
lantyne's exterior manner, and to his alleged en- 
joyment of the pleasures of the table, are in that 



DIFFERENCE WITH MR. CONSTABLE. 89 

peculiar vein in which he dehghts to indulge, and 
which we gladly and safely surrender to the judg- 
ment of all honorable and right-hearted men. 
Convinced, however, that Sir Walter Scott would 
have been the very last man to hold up to ridicule 
his intimate friend, however much he may have 
joked on the subject in the bosom of his own 
family, we beg, in taking leave of the topic, sim- 
ply to ask, — Does Mr. Lockhart discharge his 
duty to the memory of his illustrious connexion, 
by doing that which Sir Walter, if alive, would 
unquestionably have been bound, by every high- 
minded and honorable feeling, to resent and repri- 
mand as a personal affront to himself 7 

Having thus disposed of the principal charges 
against " the Ballantynes," and produced evi- 
dence in refutation of every tangible assertion 
made by Mr. Lockhart, we shall now advert to 
some incidental matters, the account of which 
betrays the same animus which we have already 
had occasion to expose and reprehend. 

And, first of ah, Mr. Lockhart, speaking of a 
quarrel, or dispute, which took place in the year 
1808 between Sir Walter and Messrs. Constable 
and Hunter, and for a time interrupted Scott's 
connexion with these gentlemen, proceeds to 
say : — '' Mr. Constable had then for his partner 
Mr. Alexander Gibson Hunter, afterwards Laird 
of Blackness, to whose intemperate language, 
much more than to any part of Constable's own 
conduct, Scott ascribed this unfortunate aliena- 



90 DIFFERENCE WITH MR. CONSTABLE. 

tion ; which, however, as well as most of my 
friend's subsequent misadventures, / am inclined 
to trace, in no small degree, to the influence which 
a third person, hitherto unnamed [viz. Mr. John 
Ballantyne], was about this time beginning to 
exercise over the concerns of James Ballantyne." 
{Life, vol. ii. pp. 195, 196.) Then follow several 
pages of unsupported assertions and contemptible 
personalities, intended to turn the Ballantynes 
into ridicule, and render them objects of contempt 
to the thoughtless and unreflecting, who take 
their impressions on trust, and believe merely be- 
cause it is written. But, happily, there exists a 
document which will not only set this incident in 
its true light, but show that, in regard to the quar- 
rel between Scott and Constable, Mr. Lockhart 
has drawn as freely on his imagination as in any 
of the more pecuniary matters and transactions 
we have had occasion to notice. We allude to a 
Diary commenced by Mr. James Ballantyne in 
the end of October, 1808, and continued till the 
beginning of April, 1809, where the progress of 
this afl'air is carefully noted down.^ 



* It is a matter of deep regret to the family and connex- 
ions of Mr. Ballantyne, that he did not persevere in the de- 
sign he appears to have formed of keeping a regular Diary 
of passing events. Such a record would have been highly 
valuable ; and, from the fulness, distinctness, and accuracy, 
with which the entries are made in the portion which he 
actually executed, we are amply warranted in believing 
that, if he had prosecuted his original intention, there would 



EXTRACTS FROM MR. BALLANTYNe's DIARY. 91 

The first entry in reference to this matter is 
dated November 11, 1808, and thus expressed : — 
" This day distinguished by Mr. Scott's observa- 
tion of a growing coohiess on the part of Con- 
stable. In what will it terminate ? In this sacred 
repository of my thoughts let me indulge in con- 
jecture. This coolness I have long noticed." 
Then follows the conjecture formed at the mo- 
ment. " This coolness may arise either from 
Constable's increasing political violence, and the 
trammels, partly with his own consent, partly 
without it, into which he is daily more and more 
led by the Whig party ; or from his idea that Mr. 
Scott makes his name too common, and therefore 
too cheap, which will injure his edition of Swift ; 
or from jealousy of Murray's visit, and appre- 
hension of Mr. Scott's having contracted some 
new literary engagement with him." After more 
to the same purport, and some speculation how 
far the coolness, if it issued in an open rupture, 
might affect the printing-house, he concludes 
thus : — " We owe, and we will pay, gratitude to 
Mr. Constable for all the. acts of kindness he has 
shown us, and will strive to retain his regard by 
temper, patience, and respect." So, in his private 
diary, writes James Ballantyne, — who, indeed, it 
is evident, instead of any conceivable motive to 

have been no occasion for making elaborate researches in 
quest of materials to refute any slander that might be levelled 
at his memory. • 



92 EXTRACTS FROM THIS DIARY CONTINUED. 

foment this quarrel, had the strongest interest in 
preventing and appeasing it. And we shall pres- 
ently show, that it can as little be attributed to 
the " influence exerted over his concerns," either 
by John Ballantyne or any one else. 

" December 5. — Was sent for by Constable in 
the afternoon. Found him civil, and got a new 
edition of Carleton to print. Hunter came in, 
and becoming rude, not to me, but of my friends, 

I left the room December 8. — Called on 

Mr. Constable before dinner, and communicated 
to him the plan of the ' Register.' He claimed 
it as his own, asserting he had communicated it 
to me on our journey from London in spring. I 
strongly and truly denied all recollection of it. 
Our conversation was civil, and we parted, to all 
appearance, friends. His whole deportment was 
calmer than I had expected. I consider all inter- 
course betwixt us as nearly broken off"; but I re- 
solve to show him all the friendship and regard he 
will permit me to show him. Called on Mr. Scott, 

and communicated all that had passed 

December 9th. — Breakfasted with Mr. Scott, to 
talk over further the ' Register,' and to commu- 
nicate a letter from Mr. Constable, received the 
night before, suggesting to me the propriety and 
necessity of not bringing forth my Prospectus of 
the ' Register,' as he knew he could bring to my 
recollection his having imparted the plan to me 
on our journey from London. Mr. Scott and I 
agreed in thinking that, even if he could do so 



EXTRACTS FROM THIS DIARY CONTINUED. 93 

(which I beUeved and was satisfied he could 
not), it was nothing to the purpose ; for nothing 
he could say to me respecting an intention exclu- 
sively his own, could, in common sense, be expect- 
ed to influence me either in one way or another. 

I therefore wrote civilly in answer, and about 
two o'clock published my Prospectus." 

The next entry on this subject is dated the llth 
December, and is in these terms : — " Called on 
Mr. Jefl"rey, in consequence of his own desire, 
and talked over the ' Register.' He was extremely 
civil, approving the plan in general, and giving 
several useful hints respecting the possibility of 
improving it. Called afterwards on Mr. Scott, 
communicating to him what Mr. Jeffrey had said. 
While in the act of leaving him, a coach stopped 
at the door, from which ahghted Mr. Constable. 
Not wishing to meet him, I stepped into the 
dining-room till he had passed into the library, 
and then left the house. In the evening, in con- 
sequence of a line from Mr. Scott, I waited on 
him, and heard what had passed betwixt him 
and Mr. Constable. The summary is shortly 
this ; Mr. Scott spoke indignantly of the conduct 
and language of Mr. Hunter towards him, ofl^ered 
to relinquish the engagement respecting Swift, 
and took every means to show Mr. Constable the 
indignation he felt towards Hunter, for the liber- 
ties he had taken with his literary character, and 
the general deportment of their house. Respect- 
ing Hunter, he said, '- Sir, he might as well have 



94 MR. lockhart's statement refuted. 

taken a lighted candle through your warehouses 
as have spoken as he has done of my literary 
reputation. He talks of me as having made my 
name cheap. For whom have I made it cheap ? 
For yoUj sir, and for nothing. Did I not do 
Hodgson, Carey, Carleton, &c. to serve you ; and 
did I ever ask or receive any remuneration 7 Sir, 
if Mr. Hunter had taken the same liberties with 
my personal as he has done with my literary char- 
acter, he should have heard from me in different 
terms.' Mr. Constable seemed deeply distressed 
— pressed that Swift might go on — offered money 
for Mr. Scott's gratuitous labors — confessed Mr. 
Hunter's rashness ; and so they parted. At this 
meeting the ' Register ' became the subject of con- 
versation. Mr. Constable expressed his resolution 
to drop all ideas of rivalry, though not concealing 
his dissatisfaction with me ; of which, of course, 
Mr. Scott took little or no notice." 

It is evident, from what we have quoted, that 
the quarrel with Mr. Constable originated in the 
rudeness of Mr. Hunter towards Sir Walter Scott ; 
and it seems equally evident that Sir Walter 
viewed it without regret. Though, by his own 
confession, in a letter to Mr. Ellis {Life^ vol. ii. p. 
215), he had charged a brace of '' bombs," in- 
tended to burst on Constable's devoted head, he 
had, nevertheless, the address, at the interview 
described by Mr. Ballantyne in his Diary, to be- 
come the accuser ; and appears to have played 
the part so well, that the great bibliopole, with all 



MR. LOCKHART's statement REFUTED. 95 

his shrewdness, conceded every thing; — "pressed 
that Swift might go on — offered money for Mr. 
Scott's gratuitous labors — confessed Mr. Hunter's 
rashness ;" in a word, surrendered at discretion. 

So far, therefore, from John Ballantyne having 
been concerned in this quarrel, or instrumental in 
provoking it, his name is not once mentioned in 
James Ballantyne' s account of the affair, written 
day by day during the period of its progress ; and 
there is not a particle of evidence to sustain Mr. 
Lockhart's allegation, that the misunderstanding 
might be traced, in no small degree, to the influ- 
ence which John was about this time beginning 
to exercise over his brother's concerns. The real 
influence lay in a different quarter. Sir Walter 
was himself the first mover in every thing. Al- 
though he represents himself to his friend Mr. 
Ellis as only the " adviser " of James Ballantyne 
in the matter of the " Register," it is notorious 
that the work was projected by him, and that he 
was a proprietor thereof; and it is equally certain, 
that the scheme of starting " a new bookselling- 
house in Edinburgh," which Mr. Lockhart ac- 
knowledges to have been ''begun in the short- 
sighted heat of pique on the part of Sir Walter," 
was also exclusively his own, notwithstanding 
that the matter is disguised in his correspondence. 
How, then, are we to account for, or explain the 
insinuations against John Ballantyne ? How, 
with so many facts of this nature staring him in 
the face, can Mr. Lockhart imagine that the 



96 MR. lockhart's account of 

world will impute the misfortunes of the house of 
James Ballantyne and Co. to any other than the 
true cause, namely, the rash projects of Sir Wal- 
ter Scott himself? 

Mr. Lockhart gives an account of the memora- 
ble affair of the Beacon newspaper, which involv- 
ed Sir Walter in much discredit, and led event- 
ually to a very melancholy catastrophe.^ " Mr. 
Lockhart's account of this matter," says the Spec- 
tator^ "is such as might be expected from his 
own political spirit. He finds no fault with the 
scheme for establishing a newspaper, whose ob- 
ject was the most violent Tory partisanship : his 
censure is directed against the blunders which 
rendered the scheme abortive. This was, per- 

* The event here alluded to is thus noticed by Mr. Lock- 
hart ; — " The results were lamentable : the Beacon was made 
the subject of Parliamentary discussion, from which the 
then heads of Scotch Toryism did not escape in any very 
consolatory plight ; but, above all, the Beacon bequeathed 
its rancor and rashness, though notits ability, to a Glasgow 
paper, of a similar form and pretensions, entitled the Sentinel. 
By that organ the personal quarrels of the Beacon were 
taken up and pursued with relentless industry ; and, finally, 
the Glasgow editors disagreeing, some moment of angry 
confusion betrayed a box of MSS., by which the late Sir 
Alexander Boswell of Auchinleck was revealed as the writer 
of certain truculent enough pasquinades. A leading Edin- 
burgh Whig, who had been pilloried in one or more of these, 
challenged Boswell; and the baronet fell, in as miserable a 
quarrel as ever cost the blood of a high-spirited gentleman." 
(Lt/e, vol. V. pp. 153, 154.) 



97 

haps, to be expected. 'The Beacon,'' he says, 
' originated in the alarm with which the Edin- 
burgh Tories contemplated the progress of Radi- 
cal doctrines during the agitation of the Queen's 
business in 1820, and the want of any adequate 
counteraction on the part of ministerial newspa- 
pers in the North. James Ballantyne had, on that 
occasion, swerved from his banner^ and, by so do- 
ing, given not a little offence to Scott. He ap- 
proved, therefore, of the project of a new weekly 
journal, to be conducted by some steadier hand; 
and, when it was proposed to raise the requisite 
capital for the speculation by private subscription, 
expressed his willingness to contribute whatever 
sum should be named by other gentlemen of his 
standing.' Mr. Lockhart here treats James Bal- 
lantyne with an injustice of which too many in- 
stances have occurred in this work."^ His cen- 

* " No part of Mr. Ballantyne's conduct," continues the 
Spectator, "does him higher honor than the manly firmness 
with which, Tory as he was, he refused to permit his jour- 
nal to be prostituted to the mean objects of a faction, and 
with which, notwithstanding his habitual respect and defer- 
ence for Scott, he not only withstood his remonstrances and 
frowns, but even saw him transfer his favor and support to 
a newspaper established in express opposition to Ballan- 
tyne's own. From an impartial biographer such conduct 
would have drawn a willing tribute of admiration." The 
same journal adds, " that it was the very steadiness of Bal- 
lantyne's hand that rendered him obnoxious to the displeas- 
ure of the Edinburgh Tories, and to that of one of the most 
violent among them — Sir Walter Scott." 



yy REMARKS ON HIS ACCOUNT OF 

sure of Mr, Ballantyne in this matter we hold to 
be the very highest praise he could unwittingly 
bestow on that gentleman. But, as usual, Mr. 
Lockhart is inaccurate in his facts. The Beaco7i, 
he says, was established because James Ballan- 
tyne had swerved from his banner, and because 
Sir Walter Scott wished for a journal to be con- 
ducted by some steadier hand. But, if such was 
Sir Walter's motive, it is curious that he should 
have offered the editorship of the neiv journal to 
his old friend, with a salary of no less than £500 
a-year ; an offer, however, which Mr. Ballan- 
tyne, to his infinite honor, refused to accept. His 
pen was not that of a hireling, his integrity was 
not to be bought. He may have been mistaken 
in his views of certain public matters, but he was 
ever honest and sincere ; nor could any consider- 
ation induce him to swerve from what he believed 
to be the truth. In several well-known instances 
he gave the most convincing proofs of manly firm- 
ness and independence of character ; and in the 
particular case before us, his refusal to accept the 
editorship of the Beacon — a fact which we state 
upon undoubted authority — reflects the highest 
honor on his memory. The nature of the con- 
nexion which Mr. Ballantyne would have,formed) 
had not his spirit and his principles secured him 
against the possibility of ever making himself the 
tool of a party, may easily be conjectured from 
the following letter on the subject, which Scott 
addressed to Mr. Croker, Secretary of the Admi- 



THE DEATH OF MRS. BALLANTYNE. 99 

ralty, after the whole concern had been blown to 
pieces : — 

'' I had the fate of Cassandra in the Beacon 
matter from beginning to end: I endeavored in 
vain to impress on them the necessity of having 
an editor who was really up to the business, and 
could mix spirit with discretion, one of those 
' gentlemen of the press ' who understand the ex- 
act lengths to which they can go in their voca- 
tion. Then I wished them, in place of that bond, 
to have each thrown down his hundred pounds, 
and never inquired more about it ; and, lastly, I 
exclaimed against the crown counsel being at all 
concerned. In the two first remonstrances, I was 
not listened to ; in the last I thought myself suc- 
cessful, and it was not till long afterwards that I 
heard they had actually subscribed the bond. 
Then the hasty renunciation of the thing, as if we 
had been doing something very atrocious, put me 
mad altogether. The fact is, it is a blasted busi- 
ness, and will continue long to have bad conse- 
quences." 

The only other matter which we deem of sufli- 
cient importance to deserve particular notice, oc- 
curs in the seventh and last volume of Mr. Lock- 
hart's work. About the middle of February, 
1829, Mr. Ballantyne had the irreparable misfor- 
tune of losing, by fever, in the prime of life, and 
under family circumstances pecuharly painful, a 
most excellent and amiable wife, to whom he 
was strongly attached. " With his domestic ha- 



lofC. 



100 COOLNESS BETWEEN SIR WALTER SCOTT 

bits," says Sir Walter Scott, in his Diary of the 
17th of February, " the blow is irretrievable. 
What can he do, poor fellow, at the head of such 
a family of children ] I should not be surprised 
if he were to give way to despair." He was, in 
fact, overwhelmed with grief; but, so far from 
giving way to despair, he, like a true Christian, 
^humbly applied for comfort and support at the 
only Source of all lasting consolation. He was 
not able to appear at his wife's funeral ; and this, 
it seems, Scott viewed " with something more 
than pity," which, we presume, means contempt 
Mr. Ballantyne, however, rallied a little; and, 
having made some settlement of his affairs, inti- 
mated to Sir Walter his intention of retiring for a 
few weeks to the country, there to straggle in 
solitude with an overpowering sorrow. Let us 
now hear Mr. Lockhart : — 

" Ballantyne retired, accordingly, to some se- 
questered place near Jedburgh, and there, indulg- 
ing his grief in solitude, fell into a condition of 
religious melancholy, from which, I think, he 
never wholly recovered. Scott regarded this as 
a weakness, and, in part at least, as wilful weak- 
ness, and addressed to him several letters of 
strong remonstrance and rebuke. I have read 
them, but do not possess them, nor perhaps would 
it have been proper for me to print them. In 
writing of the case to myself, he says, ' I have a 
sore grievance in poor Ballantyne' s increasing 
lowness of heart, and I fear he is sinking rapidly 



AND MR. JAMES BALLANTYNE. 101 

into the condition of a religious dreamer. His 
retirement from Edinburgh was the worst ad- 
vised scheme in the world. I in vain reminded 
him that when our Saviour himself was to be led 
into temptation, the first thing the devil thought 
of was to get him into the wilderness.' Ballan- 
tyne, after a feio loeeks^ resumed his place in the 
printing-office, but he addicted himself more and 
more to what his friend considered as erroneous 
and extravagant notions of religious doctrine ; 
and I regret to say, that in this difference origi- 
nated a certain alienation, not of affection, but of 
confidence, which was visible to every near ob- 
server of their subsequent intercourse. Towards 
the last, indeed, they saw but little of each other. 
I suppose, however, it is needless to add that, 
down to the very last, Scott watched over Bal- 
lantyne's interest with undiminished attention." 

Perhaps it may be so ; but in this instance his 
anxiety had reference, also, to his own affairs. 
It has already been seen how necessary James 
Ballantyne's critical emendations had become to 
a writer whose compositions were thrown off with 
such haste and rapidity. At this time the print- 
ing-office was busily occupied with the novel 
entitled Anne of Geierstein^ and Mr. Ballantyne 
could ill be spared. His absence, indeed, was a 
serious inconvenience to Scott ; and, with all re- 
spect for the latter, we believe that Mr. Ballan- 
tyne's opinions on religious doctrine, — in which 
there was neither extravagance nor " dreaming," 

E^ 



102 COOLNESS BETWEEN SIR WALTER SCOTT 

— would have caused him much less uneasiness 
had not that gentleman thus withdrawn himself 
for a time from business, to indulge and thereby 
subdue the grief by which he was overwhelmed. 
Sir Walter, in his Diary, April 18th, says, — " I 
find J. B. has not returned to his business, though 
I wrote to say how necessary it was. Mij pity 
begins to give way to anger. I have written to 
him letter third, and, I am determined, last." 
Mr. Ballantyne, however, did return to his busi- 
ness, with his faculties unimpaired, and his feel- 
ings, which had received so deep a wound, com- 
posed ; — he did not subside into the condition of 
a religious dreamer, as Sir Walter had feared ; — 
and, notwithstanding all he had suffered, his fidel- 
ity, watchful affection, and unequalled services, 
never failed Scott, either upon this or any other 
occasion. His opinion, indeed, of the work then 
in progress (^Anne of Geie?^stein) was but too 
faithfully given : and, in whatever may have 
originated the " alienation " alluded to in the pre- 
ceding extract and in the following correspond- 
ence, the disapprobation Mr. Ballantyne felt him- 
self compelled to express regarding this novel and 
those which succeeded it, added to the more mo- 
derate tone which he had adopted in politics, — 
coming upon Scott, too, at a time when his own 
health and spirits were very indifferent, — contri- 
buted largely, Ave have no doubt, to increase the 
feeling ; till, on Sir Walter's part, it became a set- 
lied coolness towards his old friend, which lasted 
during the short remainder of his life. 



AND MR. JAMES BALLANTYNE. 103 

Of this breach between Sir Walter Scott and 
himself, Mr. Ballantyne, in writing to Mr. Lock- 
hart shortly before his death, had spoken ; and, 
as a curious contrast to the tone assumed by the 
latter gentleman in the work which has called 
forth these strictures, we shall insert here his re- 
ply to that and another letter from Mr. Ballan- 
tyne, written about the same time. 

" London, JYov. 1, 1832. 
" My Dear Sir, 

" If any feeling had really existed of the na- 
ture which your letter begins with mentioning, 
that most touching^ most manly letter would have 
been a thousand times m,ore than enough to do 
aivay loith it for ever. I can, however, speak for 
myself, that, though I did observe a certain dif- 
ference in your relations with your dear friend 
Sir Walter, I never even for one moment dreamed 
that any thing had occurred to disturb the old^ 
genial feelings which had through your lives 
been equally marked in both of you as friends. 
For two years before his death, Sir Walter Scott 
was no longer, in all respects, the man of his 
earlier days ; and I can perfectly understand, that 
his political impressions should have been con- 
veyed within that period in a style which would 
not before have been possible for him. Let us 
draw a veil over the infirmities of those few sad 
and weary months, and now endeavor to think 
of him only as he was when you and I so often 



104 CURIOUS DOCUMENTS. 

shared together the dehghts of his friendship and 
conversation. 

'' Your Memoranda of him will be expected by 
me as among the most precious materials for his 
biography. You kncAV the man from a boy ; and 
his literary life may be said to have been all in 
your presence, even from the working of its small- 
est springs. I earnestly hope your health may 
soon be entirely re-established ; and I am joined 
in this wish by all the members of my wife's 
family (they are all at this moment here), as well 
as in the expression of sincere regret that you 
should have had the pain of writing such a letter 
at such a time. 

" Believe me truly and cordially yours, 

(Signed) " J. G. Lockhart. 

" James Ballantyne, Esq. Printer, Edinburgh." 

Mr. Lockhart, having received the Memoranda 
alluded to, again writes to Mr. Ballantyne in the 
same '^ cordial" and affectionate manner : — 

" London, December 6, 1832. 

^' My Dear Sir, 

'' I have received your packet, and read with 
infinite interest its precious contents. Your out- 
line of your intercourse with Sir W. Scott is quite 
sufficient to keep ins rigid as to some, most indeed, 
of the literary epochs of his life. The anecdotes 
interwoven and appended are even more vahia- 
ble. Perhaps what you say as to his early felt 



EXEMPLIFIED. 105 

superiority over all that came into contact with 
his judgment, temper, and intellectual resources 
generally, will be to posterity a most satisfactory 
piece of evidence, how true that in him the boy- 
was father to the man. I feel as if I had known 
him in the days of Kelso, and the Tavern-club, 
and the Stage-coach Journey. 

^^ I pray you to continue to draw on your inem- 
ory for more and more of these invaluable details ; 
and may your health, for this and a thousand 
other good works to follow, be strengthened and 
restored. 

'' Ever yours, most sincerely, 
(Signed) ''J. G. Lockhart. 

" To James Ballantijne, Esq. Printer, Edinburgh." 

" Trtdy and cordially yours ! " Are we, then, 
to take as evidence of his '' cordiality " the man- 
ner in which Mr. Lockhart has, throughout the 
whole of his work, treated the memory of the 
man whom he thus addresses ; — endeavoring to 
stigmatise his habits, ridicule his person, and 
blacken his character, by holding him up to the 
world as a mere fanfaro?i, overblown with vanity, 
pomposity, and gluttony — negligent, conceited, 
and full of vain imaginations 7 Is it thus, we 
ask, that Mr. Lockhart shows his regard for the 
old and intimate friend of Sir Walter Scott, whom 
he is also fain to claim as his own 1 Is it thus 
that he usually adjusts his practice to his profes- 
sions, and evinces his cordiality towards those 
whom he honors with his friendship 7 



106 A CASE IN POINT. 

But these letters require no commentary. They 
are, as the reader will observe, filled with expres- 
sions of regard for Mr. Ballantyne, and of grati- 
tude for the important contribution he had made 
towards the projected Memoirs of his illustrious 
friend ; a contribution which Mr. Lockhart him- 
self describes as quite sufficient to " keep him 
right as to some, most indeed, of the literary 
epochs '^ of Sir Walter's life. Yet, at the very 
time when he was writing in these terms to 
Mr. Ballantyne, then on his death-bed, and ex- 
hausting his last energies in the labor of love he 
had undertaken, Mr. Lockhart must have been 
engaged in concocting those unjust, ungenerous, 
and derogatory reflections, the refutation of which 
has formed the subject of the present publication. 
For the honor of Letters, we sincerely trust that 
the duplicity here displayed is of but rare occur- 
rence in the intercourse of literary men, and that 
the cause of literature will not soon again be dis- 
credited by such a humbling disclosure. 

Finally, in taking a retrospect of all that we 
have written, we confess our total inability to 
reconcile with any principle known to us the 
extraordinary animosity with which, from first to 
last, the name of Ballant^me is pursued ; far less 
to account for that unparalleled pertinacity of 
misrepresentation which it has been our painful 
task to expose in the course of this pamphlet. 
But, in a recent volume of the (Quarterly Revmo^ 



A CASE IN POINT. 107 

we are furnished with a theory on this subject, 
which, as it is evidently the production of one 
well acquainted with the principles of that species 
of biography in which Mr. Lockhart excels, we 
shall, without scruple, submit to the considera- 
tion of our readers, as a fitting conclusion to 
strictures which, from their very nature, could 
scarcely assume a methodical form. The solution 
in question is to be found in the introduction to a 
review of the Memoirs of the Life of Sir James 
Mackintosh, contained in that journal. 

" Whether a man writes his own life or that of 
some dear friend lately deceased, it is evident that 
there must be such a favorable color spread over 
the picture thdit its fidelity must be rather worse 
than dubious ; for even in a court of law the evi- 
dence of a party can only be admitted in the rare case 
in which it shall be against himself Unfavorable 
or discreditable circumstances are generally passed 
over in silence ; or, if they should be of too much 
notoriety to be wholly unnoticed, they are so 
covered by the veil of partiality as hardly to be 

recognized Nor is it with regard to the 

principal subject only, that contemporaneous biog- 
raphy, by a man's own or friendly hands, is 
unsatisfactory ; many, and in some instances 
almost all, of the secondary characters in the 
drama of his life are still upon the stage. If the 
writer should possess good-nature and delicacy, 
these persons will probably be treated with insipid 
or exaggerated complaisance — ^justly enough in 



APR 4 1904 

108 CONCLUSION. 

one respect: being brought involimtarily before 
the "public as mere subordinates to the principal 
figure, it would be cruel to treat them otherwise 
than civilly ; and the keejjing of the picture for- 
bids their being treated with more than civility. 
But, on the other hand, if the pen happens to be 
caustic^ and the hero of the book has had much deal- 
ings with mankind^ it is almost impossible that 
there should not supervene a great deal of preju- 
dice and consequent misrej^resentation ; so that, 
what between cautious good-breeding on the one 
hand, and rivalry and scandal on the other, the 
secondary characters of a contemporaneous biogra- 
phy are^ in general^ still less justly delineated than 
the hero himself^ — and, upon the whole, we feel 
corroborated in our doubts whether the very best 
of this species of biography can be considered in 
any higher light than a romance of real life — a 
picture of which the principal figure must be con- 
siderably flattered, and every thing else sacri- 
ncED TO its prominence and effect.'' 

Quara temere in nosmet legem sanciinus iniquam ! 



THE END. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 





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